Al Talks Too Much
by agent000
Summary: What do you do when you want to know something, but the older brother won't say a word? Ask the younger brother, of course! He doesn't know any better anyway...
1. Chapter 1

Hi, this is Alphonse. I'm not really supposed to be writing right now, since my brother is a bit worried about my writings being found by someone who shouldn't see them, so please, don't let him know that I'm writing this, okay?

Anyway, I know that a lot of you have questions that you've always wanted to ask me and my brother, but you haven't gotten very far because Brother will never even acknowledge your existence. Sorry about that, he's like that with just about everybody. I'd be happy to try and answer your questions for you, but please don't let him know I'm doing this, okay? He's stressed enough right now without knowing what I'm doing behind his back.

Okay, the first letter I've got is this:

**How did you and Edward find Huskeson? And what did you do when you did?**

Well, in all honesty, we haven't found him yet. We've been searching long and hard for him, but he's a difficult man to track down, as well as the fact that Brother is easily distractible. Every time he sees something happening, he tends to veer off track and check out the other situation. Just the other day, he saw someone harassing a Jew, and he went and got into a fight with the assailant. Normally I would have told him not to, but in the case of there being an innocent victim, I wasn't sure what to say. I just hope that he doesn't get himself hurt doing that. I won't even tell you what he does when Nazis are involved.

Anyway, we're still traveling, trying to find the guy, though we haven't been getting very far. Brother doesn't say much about it lately. I think he's afraid that we're going to fail to find it and that there will indeed be another huge war. He doesn't have to even say it aloud; I know that that's what he's thinking. I just hope I'm wrong. Next question.

**Why does Ed look like a girlie man?! Dudes don't have long hair and they definitely don't braid it if they do...**

Um…girlie man? I'm assuming you're questioning Brother's masculinity, right? I'm sure glad that Brother isn't reading this, though I must admit I'm slightly amused.

I personally don't think it's that strange for him to wear long hair like that. It tends to run in the family. There were a lot of people back in Amestris that wore their hair that way, actually. I even tried it for a time since I missed my brother and wanted to emulate him, as it made me feel closer to him somehow. I never did braid it, but my hair doesn't braid as well as his does.

Um…also…what exactly is a 'dude'? Sorry, that word just confused me a bit…

Anyway, if anyone else has a question for me, feel free to write me and ask. Just please understand that my native language is Amestrian, and I'm still trying to get a grasp of this English dialect, so it would be helpful if you made it as easy for me as possible by not using too much slang. If I have to show someone your letter to have them explain the meaning, you'll likely only see the translated version of it if and when I answered it, so your letter might not be word for word.

Oh and one more thing: You'll have to forgive a bad habit of mine. I tend to take funny topics seriously and serious topics funny, as well as a general interspersing of naiveté, philosophy, and sarcasm whether the topic calls for it or not. Sorry, that's just what I tend to do, and I don't always notice myself doing it. If it annoys you, I apologize, but that's just the way I tend to write. If you want someone who reacts differently, go and find one of those people who like to pretend to be my brother…though that's kind of creepy.

Okay, one session down, now I hope that you enjoy my ramblings, though I honestly don't know what's so special about it. If you want more, feel free to write to me, and I'll try to answer your questions.


	2. Chapter 2

Brother's been snooping around in my stuff lately, so I nearly got caught responding to these letters of yours, but thankfully, he didn't actually catch me. That's why it took me a few days to respond this time. I didn't want to take the chance of getting one of those all-too-familiar brotherly lectures from him. I love him to pieces, but, well…his lectures aren't fun, unless I provoked him on purpose, which is rare.

Anyway, I'll answer a couple more questions here, since Brother stepped out for a few minutes. Here's the first question:

**Why does Ed always break his Auto-Mail?**

Answer: Because it's there to be broken, of course! Give something to Brother and tell him that it's impossible to break it, and he'll find a way to prove that it can be broken just because you said it could not be. If you say that it's really easy to break, so you tell him to make sure not to, he'll break it anyway just to let you know that he is not going to be controlled.

Hehe…okay, seriously, the reason he breaks his Auto-Mail so often is because he tends to always find himself in dangerous situations which he doesn't know how to get out of without a fight. Since he doesn't consider his Auto-Mail to be part of himself ((much to Winry's chagrin)) he uses it to take the hardest blows, which puts a lot of strain on it. It's almost inevitable that it'll break when he does that. True, it's smart to let something that can be replaced take most of the strain, but it's not too smart of him to always get in those situations that require him to do so. I try to knock some sense into him, but what good does it do? That's my brother.

**What's Ed's and Winry's relationship…exactly? And who's your secret love fantasy? What girl do you want to go on a tryst with?**

Heh, now you're asking about things even my brother doesn't have the guts to admit to me? Of course, even if he almost never talks to me about such things, I still know what's going on in his head. I could hardly call myself his brother if I didn't.

When we were little, we used to argue about who was going to marry Winry when we grew up. As usual, with all our arguments, I won that one. Well…I won it with Brother…but not with Winry. She rejected me for some reason, but she also rejected my brother because he was too short. ((I'm so glad he's not reading this right now.)) During recent years, however, I've noticed that she doesn't seem to even notice his height, unless she simply wants to make him react. The way she talked to him whenever we'd come home seemed to be a pretty strong indication to me as to what her current feelings were.

As for my brother's feelings, he never says anything, or at least, tries not to, but I've caught him staring at Winry out of the corner of his eyes when he thinks no one's looking. He also calls for her in his sleep. He may not admit his feelings aloud, but his actions betray his thoughts. He has some pretty deep feelings for Winry that he'll never admit aloud, and now that we're on the other side of the Gate, he's even more closed-mouthed about it than ever…which is pretty closed-mouthed. I think he feels guilty for leaving her there. I must admit that I do too.

As to who I like…well…I can't really say that I've got much of a crush on anyone at present. I'll admit that I liked Winry a lot, but since I wanted more to see her and my brother get together, I kept silent about that feeling and ignored it. No one else that I've met has awakened that spark in me, so I'm not exactly in love with anyone at the moment. Why do you ask, anyway?

Uh-oh, Brother just stepped in the door, so I need to close this session. I'll be happy to respond to some more letters when I find some time that Brother is away, so feel free to send me some more questions. See you next time.

Alphonse Elric


	3. Chapter 3

Okay, this is Al again. Brother's taking a nap in the other room, so I don't think that I'll get caught anytime soon. Even if he does wake up, I should be able to hear him approaching. No matter what he tries, that auto-mail makes a lot of noise. It's kind of nice actually, because it lets me know where he is at all times…sort of like putting a bell around a cat's neck.

Looks like my answers to your questions are starting to become more in demand. I suppose that's a good thing. Well…I hope it is. I'm not sure if you honestly want to know the answers to these questions or if you just want to see what I'll say. The way some of these are worded, I tend to suspect the latter. Anyway, first question:

**Lyke, yo meh home skillin biscuit! J'us sayin yo, and all, dun really have a question for ya. Word!**

**And dude, how could u not know wat a dude is? (basically having fun talking gangsta)**

**Okay, seriously now. Hi, I'm Ayumi. n.n I was wondering, how does it actually feel to be a suit of armor? –curious-**

…..O-kay…I'm not sure I understood that…at all…I gathered something about a biscuit, and something about a question, and something about having fun talking. Yeah, I must agree with you there…you were certainly having fun talking, but talking what? That wasn't English or German, and it certainly wasn't Amestrian, so what language was that? Sorry, I'm just confused.

Anyway, in the last part of the letter, which I actually understood, you asked about my feelings about being a suit of armor. Hmm…how does one describe that? Have you ever gotten yourself locked inside a refrigerator? Take that feeling, and then combine the ability to move that refrigerator around, knowing that you're not going to die of suffocation or anything, but you still can't get out, and everyone around you is afraid to let you out. That's about what it feels like. It's not the most pleasant feeling, but it's how I existed for several years. You get used to it after awhile, though I don't care to repeat it.

My advice for you next time is to take your letter to a translator before sending it to me, since I'm guessing that English is your second language, or perhaps send it in German if you understand that better. Since I don't know what language you're speaking in, I'm kind of powerless here. Next question.

**If you could choose over, would you still have gone with Edward to Germany or have stayed in Amestris?**

That's actually a relatively easy question to answer. I want to be by my brother's side no matter what, so of course I would have still come here with him. I have to admit that I do miss Winry and Auntie though, as well as a number of the other people we knew back on that side of the Gate. The thought that we'll probably never see them again is kind of hard to accept at times, but since I have my brother by my side, I can bear it.

It's really odd being here too, because when I go about my daily business and run into people with the faces of those I knew back in my own world, I get an odd sense of not belonging here, even with my having accepted this world as my new home. I don't think I'll ever feel like I belong, since I was never meant to be here, but here is where I am, so I just have to deal with it. As long as I have my brother though, the awkwardness is more than worth it. Those last two years in Amestris without my brother around were a lot worse than the time I've been here with him.

**After two years of working with standard prosthetics, albeit way beyond state of the art, how is Ed dealing with having fully functioning auto-mail again?**

In truth, Brother's previous prosthetics weren't exactly what one could label "standard" since they operated a lot more like auto-mail than any of the standard prosthetics around here. Our father apparently had some auto-mail knowledge in order to be able to concoct those, though an auto-mail mechanic definitely would do a better job. Brother's lucky to have had anyone around with an understanding of how that sort of thing worked though.

As to how he's dealing with fully functioning auto-mail, he seems to be doing pretty well. I get quite amused by him sometimes when he wakes up and groans about a pain in his right shoulder, and then suddenly jumps out of bed and says, "Wait, I have auto-mail again!" I guess that he had gotten so used to not having it at all during those two years that having it once again still amazes him.

For the most part, he seems pretty happy with having that auto-mail around, and surprisingly, he's trying hard not to break it this time. I suppose it's because he won't be able to get it replaced if he does, as well as the fact that it's the last thing he has to remind him of Winry. He doesn't say those thoughts aloud, but I do see him staring at his auto-mail a lot, and I can only imagine what he's thinking. I can usually come pretty close when I guess his thoughts though, and it kind of spooks him when I ask him why he's thinking about such-and-such. He should know that I'm highly sensitive to him, I'm his brother after all!

**What's with the cat obsession? Other than the fact that Ed loved him as well, when he was a kid.**

Somehow I knew that a question like this was going to come sooner or later. Why does everyone seem to think that I'm obsessed with cats? I really like cats…but how does that make me obsessed? I have a few cats right now, sure, but Brother likes them too. I honestly don't understand why people think it's an obsession. It's not.

I do confess to having always brought home strays when I could get away with it, and just generally adoring cats. Being a cat lover isn't all that uncommon, actually. A lot of people are that way. Some people prefer a cat over a dog because a dog just tends to be a loyal robot without any semblance of a mind to think for itself, whereas a cat will only be considerate of you if it considers you worthy of such respect.

Then again, my brother acts like that too. I suppose that if he were an animal, he'd probably be a cat. His personality is certainly a lot like one. Not many people would be openly disrespectful to their superior officer, but he sure was. How he ever managed to get away with it, I shall never know, but that's Brother for you. Who knows, maybe he was a cat in a past life. Maybe that's why I like cats, you never know.

I think I just heard Brother moving around in the other room, so I'm going to end this letter answering session for today, but feel free to keep sending me questions, and I'll do my best to answer. Goodbye for now!

Alphonse Elric


	4. Chapter 4

This is Alphonse again. I told Brother that I was keeping a sort of journal and that if he invaded my privacy, I'd never trust him again. Well, that's basically an empty threat, as I tend to make a lot of them, and he knows it, but knowing him, he's not going to take any chances. He'll leave me alone for awhile, so I should have time to answer a few of your questions.

**Were you in the military before or were you just traveling?**

…What? My brother was in the military, but I never joined the military myself. I just didn't want to ever be without my brother, so I went wherever he went. Perhaps my always being there confused some people into thinking that I was a part of the military, but I wasn't. I never was. Brother was the only one with an income, and for that matter, he was the only one that needed it, since my only expenses were traveling expenses. Living in a suit of armor is actually a rather cheap way to live. I suppose that that's one good thing about it.

Okay, I have a lot of questions to answer this time, so I guess I had better stop rambling and just move on to the next one.

**Do you think that Roy and Ed had a special relationship, and that was because Ed was able to get away with being disrespectful to Roy?**

Well…sort of…but probably not the way you're thinking. Colonel Mustang…er…General…er, whatever his rank is now, always seemed to take a fatherly attitude with me and my brother, though Brother either didn't see it or refused to admit it to himself. That's the real reason why he was able to get away with disrespecting Roy. It's simply because they had more of a father/son relationship than a superior/subordinate relationship, though I must admit that that's pretty odd, considering that they were both in the military.

Another thing that I think might've been part of the reason behind that odd relationship of theirs is that by deliberately taking measures to annoy my brother until he exploded, Roy managed to somehow keep control over him that way. You may have noticed that once my brother no longer cared about what Roy said, Roy had absolutely no control. So, Roy did his best to keep control over my brother by constantly annoying him. It seemed to work, amazingly enough. Not many people CAN control my brother.

**Hey Al, is Noah living with you at the moment? How do she and Ed get along and for that matter what do you think of her? Does she ever do things which remind you of Rose?**

Heh, sadly, Noah left awhile back because the tension between her and my brother was too much for her to handle. I'm pretty sure that Brother forgave her for betraying him, but she apparently never forgave herself for doing so. I don't think my presence helped any either, because every time she would look into my face, I'm pretty sure she would see the face of my double who died as a result of her cooperation with the wrong people. I realize that that was an unintentional side affect, but she didn't seem to see it that way.

In addition to this whole mess on Noah's side, Brother seemed to have some feelings for her which he never expressed, even though I could certainly recognize they were there. I think he was afraid to express those feelings because he felt guilty about betraying Winry in doing so, even though he never had expressed his feelings to Winry either. Maybe he still has hope that we'll get back through the Gate. I honestly don't see how that's possible, but if he still has hope, then I'll continue to hope as well.

As to reminding me of Rose, she hasn't done much to cause me to think of her, other than looking like her. She's a very different person from Rose, and other than the fact that both of them have a calm, sweet personality, there really isn't much in common between the two. It's a bit odd, since they are each other's doubles, that they don't act more like each other. I guess it's like identical twins: they look alike but they sure don't act alike. Noah is sweet though, and I do miss her company as a friend. We haven't heard from her in awhile. I hope she's okay and that we hear from her soon.

**Ok Al, have you met anyone else's others in the Gate yet? If so, who? And my sister wants to know if you would feel guilty if you saw Wrath's other?**

Heh, yeah, we've met a number of other people on this side of the Gate, though not IN the Gate. We're on the same side of the Gate that you're on, not in it. Most of the people I've run into that are doubles of people I knew back on the other side of the Gate are people from the military or people that my brother and I met when we were in the midst of our travels. In other words, not very substantial people, but intriguing nonetheless. It's a little bit spooky at times, actually. The other day, we spotted a little girl that looked a lot like the girl we knew as Ancy during the time when Brother was mistaken for a military brat and kidnapped. I would've tried to talk to her, but her parents looked rushed, and we didn't want to disturb them.

If I ever saw Wrath's other, I suppose I would be a bit disturbed. I would first off be reminded of my teacher, and how much she had to go through because of her miscarried baby and the resulting human transmutation, and then the homunculus that came from that. I'd also feel a bit guilty for having taken Wrath's life towards the end in order to open the Gate, even though he asked me to. I feel guilty about that even now. Homunculus or not, he was still a person, so it bothers me. I realize that he was in pain and dying though, so there was really nothing that could have been done about it otherwise. I can't seem to reason with the emotions attached to that incident though.

**I have another question for you. After Edward put your soul back into your body and you woke up what thoughts went through your mind? Were you confused scared what?**

That moment of my life was a scary situation that I never care to repeat. The last thing I knew, I had been trying to bring my mother back to life, and then the next instant I was in some unknown place, the only person around having introduced herself as Rose. My brother was nowhere in sight. You can't imagine how panicked I was at that instant with not being able to find my brother anywhere. If it had been anyone else but Rose there with me at that moment, I'm not sure they would have been able to deal with me. I was practically crying, screaming, and trying to articulate feelings that had no words for them, so my speech came out garbled and incomprehensible.

After a while, I calmed down and was able to think things through, especially once I started to discover that odd new ability I have to disconnect my soul from my body, which first manifested in my sleep. Those were not merely dreams, though I didn't know any better word to describe the experience at the time. I literally traveled in spirit to wherever my brother was and saw what he was going through, so I quickly learned that he was alive, though I had no idea where he was. I had no way of explaining to others what I knew and why I knew it, but I was aware that I had to search to find a way to reunite with him, because he was still alive and needed me.

**n.n Hello, it's me again. Sorry for confusing you before. English is my second language, what I was speaking before was a kind of variety of English.**

**Two questions. First one. When you and Ed committed human transmutation, what was it like in the Gate when it took you?**

**Second. What thoughts were in your head when you were brought back in your armor body?**

Hi, welcome back! It's okay, I'm sorry for being confused. English is my second language too…or rather, my third. German is my second. Amestrian isn't English, believe it or not. It's more like a combination of English and German, so both English and German are relatively easy to learn once you know Amestrian, but you can still get a bit confused when somebody uses a phrase that doesn't make a lot of sense.

When the Gate took me was the most awe inspiring and simultaneously the most terrifying experience in my life. Words won't do justice in the description of it, so I'm not going to try too hard to explain it, since I'll just fall short of it anyway. You have to experience it to understand, though I don't recommend the means to experience it.

One interesting thing about the Gate experience though was the utter lack of everything, including noise. The Gate is really just a great big metaphysical void, so there was pretty much nothing there…yet the void wasn't empty. I know that makes no sense, but that's the best way I can describe it.

Also, the fact that there was no noise didn't mean that there was nothing to hear. I kept hearing some sort of buzzing and ringing in my ears, or perhaps it was in my head…I'm not sure where it was coming from. It didn't feel quite like normal hearing. There was also a large mass of voices that I was swamped by, but I couldn't make out a thing they said. I probably don't even need to mention the incredibly fast pace at which information was jammed into my head and how fast I was expected to deal with everything I experienced. Like I said, awe inspiring and terrifying.

Another interesting quirk about being inside the Gate was that I sort of lost my sense of perception about who I was and where I was, though I still knew my identity. There was a point where both me and my brother saw my body and thought that it was our mother, even though I was still inside it. Why I thought my own body was my mother when I had not yet separated from it I don't know, but I know what I felt. That Gate messes with one's mind while one is in it. I can see why very few people ever make it out of there alive.

As to what thoughts I had when I was first brought back to the armor body, I don't remember a whole lot as to what happened. One moment I was cascading through the Gate, and the next moment, I woke up in a completely foreign place. It took me awhile to realize that it was the same room I had just left. I felt completely disoriented and out of place, like something was wrong. Finally, I sat up and saw that my body wasn't what I thought it would be, and I panicked. Of course, that panic was just a foretaste of what I experienced when I saw the condition my brother was in. Once I found out for sure what had happened, so many emotions were rushing through me that I felt I was going to explode, and that I couldn't handle it. I really wanted to die right then, but I held on for the sake of my brother. He would have died had I not gotten him help. I'm glad that I was able to deal with that initial shock now, since I get to be with my brother, even if in this new world, separated from everyone I know.

**What shocked you and Ed most about this world, if anything?**

The thing that most shocks me about this world is the complete disregard for anything that can't be seen by the human eye. I know for a fact that things beyond our immediate senses exist, and I can't get used to the fact that most of the people in this world are completely closed to that. My brother and I have a hard time finding anyone to talk to about our problems, since they relate to things that this world refuses to accept, and they would just think we were either making it all up, or that we were crazy. You'd think that with all their advances with physics and modern chemistry that they would have learned a thing or two about the unseen realms beyond our perception, but I guess not.

Well, Brother's knocking on my door asking if I'm done writing yet, so I suppose I should go spend a little time with him. He's seemed kind of lonely the past couple days, so I'm trying to give him a little more attention. Anyway, feel free to send me more questions if you'd like, and I'll try to answer them as soon as possible.

Alphonse Elric


	5. Chapter 5

Hi, this is Alphonse again. I'm sorry for the delay in responding again. Brother was apparently still suspicious of me so he started snooping around when I wasn't paying attention, and he actually caught me this time. Strangely, he didn't get as mad as I would have expected him to. Oh, he got mad alright, just not quite as much as I was expecting, and he's not trying to force me to stop answering your questions. He did give me a lecture though on revealing too much information. Sigh. It was also pointed out that he didn't think I was portraying him accurately enough, so he was going to make sure to look over these responses before I sent them out, just to be sure. So, you may catch some of his editing in this session of answers. You have been forewarned.

**Hey Al, I was wondering, what color are your eyes? I have gotten several conflicting accounts, so I thought that I would get the answer from you. Also, since your soul can travel between Amestris and here do you ever watch Winry and the others to see how they are? I know I would. That is all of my questions for now, don't get caught. )**

Well, your warning came a little late, as I've already been caught. I suppose I'll survive though, as long as he doesn't try to make me stop. I'm not too worried. If he hasn't made me quit now, he's probably not going to do so anytime soon.

Anyway, my eyes? Actually, all the reports you've heard are probably true, even though they conflict with each other. You see, there is more than one world in existence, as you probably well knew. There are more than two worlds as well. There are so many that you couldn't possibly count them, and it just goes without saying that many of them are quite similar to the two that we all know about. It only makes sense, doesn't it? Some Als have gray eyes while some have golden eyes like Brother, and still others have blue eyes, like Heiderich. None of these reports are inaccurate; they are simply reports from different worlds.

As for the color of MY eyes, it may surprise you to know that mine are actually blue-gray. They're pretty interesting at times, because blue-gray eyes frequently tend to change color depending on the person's mood, turning grayer during some moods and bluer during others. I've even met people whose blue-gray eyes would turn bright green when they got angry. No one's ever told me that my eyes do that, so I doubt they do. Of course, I hardly ever get angry enough to warrant such a reaction, so I really wouldn't know what my eyes are capable of.

In regards to your second question, yes, I send my soul back to Amestris to check on everybody when I can, but unfortunately, I don't have as much control as you think. I'm still trying to gain that control, but it's difficult since hardly anybody else has this problem. Most of the time that I go back to Amestris is actually in my sleep, so it appears like a dream, though I know from experience that it isn't.

While I've been able to catch glimpses of Winry and Auntie and the others, I don't really know how they're doing or what they're up to. It seems like I'm thrust back to my body as soon as I catch on that this is not quite a dream, so I don't get time to pick up such details. Maybe with time and practice, I'll get control over it so that I can stay longer and see what everybody is up to. Sigh. I miss them; I hope that they're alright.

'**Ello Al! It's Kiarra again! Anywho, here's my question. Were you and Ed shocked to see how far the technology has come on this side of the Gate?**

To say 'shocked' would be an understatement. The technological advances on this side of the Gate were mind-boggling to us, since we were so used to the progress made by alchemy rather than mere physics. We honestly had had no idea that such things could be performed without the aid of alchemy. Back in Amestris, the only invention we had that could ascend into the air was a hot air balloon…but on this side of the Gate, that sort of technology has been around for ages, and they've already moved past that stage into creating actual machines that fly.

Of course, what was more shocking to me was the fact that while I couldn't understand the complex diagrams of the technology here, Brother could. I realize that he had spent a couple years on this side of the Gate before I ever got here, but I honestly don't see how one can learn to understand it even in that time. Flying machines don't make much sense to me. I understand the basics of aerodynamics that allow something to stay in the air, but the machine itself doesn't make much sense to me. Oh well, I guess that's why they called Brother a genius. Pretty much all I've ever been able to figure out is the paper airplane, the proper method being taught to me by Roy Mustang years ago when he had a lot of paperwork that he had decided was only useful to play with.

Another thing that surprised me a lot about the technology on this side of the Gate is that while they've been striving so hard to ascend into the heavens, they haven't paid much attention to what is here down on earth. The prosthetics available here are nothing compared to the auto-mail back in Amestris, so Brother has to constantly do his best to take care of his auto-mail, since he can't get it replaced this time. I don't know what he's going to do once he has no choice but to get it replaced. Maybe they'll have invented decent prosthetics by then, who knows?

**Um…you seemed to have misinterpreted my earlier question about the military…but that's okay…you kind of answered it. Um…what's it like to have years of memories just rush back in a flash?**

Not pleasant, I can tell you that much. It seemed nice at first, because I was finally able to figure out what Brother and all the others were talking about, but it kind of overloaded my senses. I must confess that I was rather emotional for the next few weeks as I sorted through all those memories. You have to admire Brother for putting up with me during that time. I would frequently be running up to him, sometimes even crying, while I asked, "Brother, did such-and-such really happen?" I know, I cry a lot for a guy, but given the things my brother and I have been through, I think I have just cause, so long as I release the emotions in doing so and don't dwell on them. Thank goodness Brother has never belittled me for it, but then, he cries a lot too, just not as much as I do. **(Ed: I haven't cried in quite some time, thank you very much.)**

Anyway, things are calming down now, and except for the fights that Brother seems to get involved in all the time **(Ed: Which I don't cause)** things seem to be pretty normal. I must admit that I wish he'd calm down a bit, since it gets me worried, but I don't really know what to say in this regard, since he's trying to protect others. **(Ed: Sorry Al, but I can't stop until the Nazis stop first.)**

I guess that I'll close for now and probably go upstairs and take a nap. Brother seems to be pacing around like he's bored, so I expect that he'll probably come in here as soon as I head out and read what I've just written. I hope he doesn't change it too much. **(Ed: Al, is that what you think of me?)** Just understand that whatever he says is not true. **(Ed:…Wait, I'm not going to justify that by responding to it.)**

So, until next time, feel free to send me any questions you want, and I'll do my best to answer them. Take care! **(Ed: Don't encourage him.)**


	6. Chapter 6

Hi, this is Al once again to answer some of your questions. I'm sorry that I took so long to get around to this again, but Brother and I got caught up in another fight, which he wanted me to make sure to remind you that he didn't start it. The bad thing is that someone must've followed us home, so as soon as we were tipped off about that, we had to pack up and leave. Thank goodness we found out before we actually got caught.

I also noticed that a lot of you sent questions to Brother instead of me. That was unexpected, since I was the one answering your questions, not him. I don't really care though, so I asked him if he was willing to answer any of those questions you asked him. His answer was pretty straight: "Al, this is YOUR project, and I'm not going to waste my time on any of those stupid questions." Well…I guess he only likes to waste his time reading them and commenting on what I've written.

**Kiarra is here once again to ask you a question. Al, have you ever tried to help Ed get taller? I'm just dying to know!**

Have I ever tried to help Brother get taller? How would I have even been able to do so if I tried? I've always tried to get him to drink his milk, but I didn't fight him as hard about it as Winry did. I already knew it was wasted effort, but she always wanted to try. She's a warrior, that girl. You have to admire her endurance.

If you're wondering about his height in regards to the philosopher's stone…well…I couldn't really risk that, for obvious reasons. We wouldn't have been able to predict what would've happened, so it wasn't worth it. Brother may have wanted some extra height very badly, but not at that expense. We were willing to take risks regarding getting our bodies back to normal, but not for changing them into something they were never meant to be. At least that way we could halfway predict what might happen.

Okay, since I have a lot of questions this time, I'll have to write a little less of an answer for each one. That might be hard, since I'm rather talkative in writing, but I'll try. Next question.

**Well Al why did you cut your hair after you grew it out? I loved you like that!**

Heh, long story. The truth is that Alfons asked me to. Yes, I said Alfons. I've actually met him, contrary to popular belief, and not in spirit form either. He was indeed shot, but not fatally wounded, though we had to fake his death for his own safety. I'm sorry that I wasn't honest about that before, but I wasn't sure if I should come out and actually say that he was still alive. He was at his own funeral as a matter of fact, though in disguise. In addition, since I had "his face" as he liked to say, even though I was shorter and younger-looking than he was, he said that I had to try and conform, or we were both going to be in trouble sooner or later. He had said that the safest way for me to go around at that time was with the identity of being his little brother, which would explain why I looked like him, but I would also have to look German, so I had to cut my hair and change my style of dress.

Of course, I think that that was partially just a personal preference of his. He had once said that the thought of "his face" going around wearing "this thing" ((meaning my ponytail)) was kind of eerie to him. I guess that I can't say that I blame him. It's not every day that one meets their double, and I can see why it doesn't normally occur. Believe me, as intriguing as the prospect of meeting your double sounds, the intrigue doesn't last long.

The rest of this story may have nothing to do with the question, but since no one seems to know this part of the story, I guess that I might as well explain. Just after my arrival here, we went back to Alfons's place where Brother was staying. Of course, we had a doctor coming and going to treat his wounds until he got better. Anyway, since he had no extra rooms in the house, my brother and I had to share a room. We even had to share a bed, actually, but we didn't really care. After all those years of traveling that we had done back in Amestris, we were kind of used to sleeping in cramped conditions.

We got along fine for the first few weeks, while I slowly changed my habits and learned to adapt to German culture. After a while, however, Alfons and I started getting irritated with each other for no apparent reason. Looking back, I think that we were both trying to compete for Brother's attention. I guess you can't really blame us for being jealous of each other, since we were sort of the same person, and were both used to having Brother to ourselves, but it still seems kind of silly in retrospect. We kept flaunting our various knowledge of alchemy and rocketry with each other, our different lives that we had lived and shared with Brother, and getting competitive in a number of ways.

I guess that what finally drove my Brother crazy was the day that Alfons came into our bedroom and drew a bunch of rockets on the wall. I promptly returned the favor by drawing transmutation circles on his bedroom wall. When Brother saw that, he finally understood the tension between us, and he decided that we needed to separate. We packed up and left that very day, Brother choosing to go with me. I still feel kind of guilty about that. I think that Alfons was crying when Brother left, though he tried to hide it. I know that I would have cried in that situation, and if he's anything like me, which I know he is in many ways, I'm sure he would have too.

I've tried many times to apologize to Brother for only coming to this side of the Gate to cause trouble for him, but he brushes it off as if it were nothing. I realize that he wanted to be with me more than Alfons, since I'm his little brother, but I still feel really bad about that. I guess that I need to grow up a bit, but I have no idea how to handle being in the presence of one's double. That's not an experience that they teach in school…or anywhere that I know of, for that matter.

Anyway, I hope that Alfons is alright. I'm not sure whether Brother writes to him or not. If he does, he keeps it a secret from me, and I suppose that that's just as well. I probably shouldn't know about it, considering how I acted previously, but my curiosity is pretty bad all the same. I just hope that he can bring himself to forgive me for ruining his and Brother's friendship.

**Of course I'll encourage him! I'm the younger sister! I do the same to my sister…she's about two years older than me and we have the same relationship as you two do! It's great to never have to worry about being alone…though she's going to college soon. So I guess my question is: How do you deal with suddenly having your sibling gone? I'd like an answer from both of you, if you don't mind. By the way, Al, I have the same type of eyes you do. They're cool, huh?**

Heh, yeah, I guess that my eyes are kind of interesting. I used to think that they were boring and wish for something like Mom's or Brother's eyes, but I've come to accept that my own eyes have a uniqueness all their own, even if bluegray is a fairly common color. At least I can say that Brother's eyes don't change color with his mood like mine do.

As far as how to deal with suddenly having your sibling gone, that's kind of hard to explain. You feel really lonely for awhile, and in my case, I wasn't even sure if he was dead or alive, but I chose to believe that he was alive and that I'd see him again. In your case, you have an advantage, because just going away to college means that your sister is indeed alive, and that you'll see her again.

The way that I coped is that I surrounded myself with things that reminded me of Brother. I grew out my hair rather than cutting it and I dressed the way he had for years. While I admit that I didn't remember much of those four years of traveling at the time, I did remember how he had dressed at that time. It wasn't complete amnesia, just partial. I also took to studying alchemy in a sort of frenzy. I told myself that it was to find a way to bring Brother back, but I think it was more because studying reminded me of being in my brother's presence, and made me feel closer to him.

Another interesting thing on my part is that I seemed to be able to visit him in my dreams. Those dreams felt so real that I knew they were more than dreams, and that it wasn't just wishful thinking. I knew that I was really seeing Brother where he was at the moment. Meeting him in my dreams every night was a great comfort to me, and I got so that I looked forward to going to bed, just so I'd be able to see his face again.

Oh, and Brother says he'll write a few sentences in answer to this question and this question only, since he says it's one of the few that might actually be worth his time.

Ed: When I was separated from Al without knowing whether he was still alive or not, I was thrown into a life of constant worry until I found out after a couple years that he was indeed alive still. Of course, I never seem to stop worrying about him, even if he's standing by my side, but it was quite a relief to find out that he hadn't actually had to sacrifice his life for mine. The whole situation was a lot more bearable once I learned that Al was still alive, even though I wasn't sure I'd ever see him again.

I also did things to remind myself of Al in order to cope. Hanging around with Alfons was one of the major ways that I used to help me accept it, but I had some other, more trivial ways. Sometimes I would stroll out into the country in order to get a look at the natural surroundings when I could catch a ride out of the city. The countryside of Germany looks a lot like Reisenburgh, where Al and I grew up. The same white flowers even grow in both locations. Here in Germany, they call it Edelweiss. Either way, it's still a pretty flower, and it reminds me of better times. I've set up sprays of it in the house from time to time. Alfons seemed to like it too, so I was able to get away with saying that the flowers were for him, though I'm sure he knew that the flowers made me reminisce about my old home.

**I just want to know Al how you are answering these questions OVER THE INTERNET yet you still don't grasp modern American slang?**

What's the internet? It sounds like some sort of metaphysical construct, though I can't quite piece together what it might be. It sounds interesting though. Whatever the internet is, I don't use it. I receive your letters from who knows where, and I'm still baffled about how you always seem to know where we're living, even though we keep moving. Brother thinks I'm crazy, but I've been wondering if you guys are from the future, since you always seem to be able to track us down. Just do us a favor and don't tell anyone important where we are, okay? I can keep answering your questions as long as it doesn't put us in any danger.

AMERICAN slang? You're from America? How did you ever hear about us from all the way across the ocean? This is getting more and more bizarre. Well…I don't live in America, so I don't know American slang, though Brother has taught me a little bit about British slang, which he says he learned from our dad. I hardly ever use British slang though, as it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It doesn't sound anything like some of the slang that you people have been using though. Either Americans don't speak English, or my theory that you're from a different time has some merit to it. It's still kind of spooky, either way.

**Since you guys are not from our world I've been wondering…Is the only person you've talked to since Alfons died Noah? I mean…your brother doesn't really communicate.**

My brother does communicate, but he only does so when he has to. You have to understand that, being in this world, were "out of our element" so to speak. ((There, I used a cliché that I picked up somewhere, so maybe you guys will be happy.)) We constantly have to keep our guard up wherever we go, since we don't really belong here, and Brother just takes that idea a little further in not talking to people unless he has to. I can't blame him for being that way, actually. If I didn't have him at my side, I'd probably act the same way. I feel safe with him around since he likes to take the lead, but he has no one to depend on, so he has to carry the whole burden. All I can do is try and lighten it somewhat by always supporting him.

But we have talked with other people from time to time, though it's usually me doing the talking. I don't exactly remember all the people that we've talked to recently…I don't really care…but we have spoken to others, just not as much as we used to.

**How can you send your soul back through the Gate, even partially and with little control, from this side? I would think that that would use alchemic energy, but alchemy doesn't really work here – or at least it doesn't work without a blood sacrifice, but my memory is imperfect. If you don't know, do you have any theories on this?**

Sending one's soul anywhere is not alchemy, even though it can be used in conjunction with alchemy. I guess if I had to put a name on it, I would label it Soul Travel. I tend to do it mostly during my sleep, but I don't normally have a lot of control over where I go or what I do…or I forget to take control, because I think I'm dreaming until I suddenly realize that I'm not. Those dreams where I'm actually visiting somewhere feel sort of like dreams that are way too real to be dreams, and I sometimes have a hard time figuring out why I'm there and what I'm doing, and without knowing that, I can't gain control of the situation.

It doesn't bother me when that happens though, even with the lack of control. Since my soul travels out of my body during sleep almost every night, I'm pretty well used to it by now. I just simply need to learn how to "wake up" in those dreams that aren't dreams and take back control, and then I'll be able to decide where I want to go. That'll take practice though.

In addition to that, alchemy does not require a blood sacrifice to work anywhere, not even on this side of the Gate. It just makes it a little easier to perform here since there's a difference in polarity. Brother and I haven't quite figured out how to adapt for it yet, since alchemy hasn't really been developed here, but we're looking into it…or rather, I am. I think Brother gave up on performing alchemy here long ago, but I haven't. I've even been researching magic that's practiced here, since that has been developed a little more than alchemy on this side of the Gate. It might at least give me a clue to what we're missing. It's not blood that we're missing, I know that much, but blood does help to establish the life force connection necessary to perform a transmutation. I'm sure that there's a bloodless way, and I'm going to find it.

**If you could change any one decision you have made in your lifetime, would you do it? And if so, what would it be, and why? Of course I'd anticipate you'd say something about not trying to revive your mother, but then there's the issue of not being able to meet all those people on your journey, and the homunculi would still be traveling around.**

You're right. Choose either way, and chaos ensues. If we go through with what we did go through, our lives would be very difficult, which they were. If we chose to not resurrect our mother, many other people's lives would end up being difficult that would not have previously been involved. It's really hard to say what I would have chosen in retrospect. I suppose I naturally wouldn't want to break a taboo, now that I know better, but I also know what would have happened to the country if we hadn't done so. Because of my brother's involvement with the military, the government of Amestris finally started to repair itself by the time that I left. Hopefully it's continuing to do so.

I'm still undecided as to what I'd do were I given the choice. Maybe that's the reason why we're not given such choices. It's kind of a blessing in disguise that we have such limits, so that we don't have to make decisions that difficult. Power is not always a good thing.

**Alphonse: What was it like when you saw your brother again for the first time after you lost your memories? Edward: Basically the same question as above; if you go through these anyway. I suppose you should be able to have a whole (okay half of one) question to yourself.**

Well, I know that one of the first things I thought was, "He looks awfully familiar…kind of like my brother…but no, he can't be…he's too tall!" ((If Brother reads that sentence, he'll probably kill me afterward, but I couldn't lie, could I?)) **(Ed: Since you admitted that I was indeed tall, I won't do any more than maim you.)** It was kind of awkward trying to put things together in my mind once I realized that it was indeed my brother I was looking at. I guess it really hit me for the first time that I had indeed missed out on a couple years of his life, and that thought hurt, since I'd wanted so badly to watch him grow up. It really bothered me that I couldn't remember all that I'd forgotten about those years either, since I felt like I had missed out on those years of my brother's life, and then here I realize that I'd just missed two more years of his life. As you can imagine, while we were quite happy to meet, the reunion wasn't entirely happy, though I tried to keep it as pleasant as possible. When I woke up back in Reisenburgh, I couldn't help myself and I cried.

Ed: I guess that I'll answer this one too, but no others, okay? When I first saw that Al was present in that suit of armor, I had a lot of images run through my head. How could he have possibly gotten back into a suit of armor? It had actually run through my mind that perhaps when I had sacrificed myself to bring him back, that I had messed up and brought him back exactly as he was just before he had given himself for me…bound to a suit of armor. I was so relieved to find out later that that wasn't the case, and that he was indeed in his own body again, but it hurt to find out that he couldn't remember those four years we traveled together. I knew it wasn't his fault, but those four years represented the time that we became the closest as brothers, and was the most important time in my life, even though it was the hardest. It's strange how a curse can turn into a blessing at the same time.

**What was it like when you learned so many people know so much about your journey through Amestris?**

I'm still having a hard time getting used to that. I honestly don't know how you all know about our journey, but as long as you don't cause us any harm, I don't care too much, and Brother just pretends not to care. It bothers him, but since there's nothing he can do, he pretends nothing's wrong. I'd still like to know how it is that you all know about us though, as well as always knowing where we live. Oh well, perhaps it's better that we not know.

**Hi Al, too bad my warning was late, but there's not much to do about it now. Have you found any new kittens to take care of yet? Has Ed actually let you keep them? If you need a good home for any and can find a way, I think I can help. Ed made me laugh, since by saying that he would not justify your statement by a response he justified it by responding. The only way he could have gotten out of that one is by not saying anything, yet this is Ed we're talking about. I'll save the rest of my questions for later.**

Heh, well, I have picked up a few strays from time to time. I'm taking care of a couple now, but Brother won't let me keep them long. Just until we find a permanent home for them. I understand why, since we can't really give them adequate care while being always on the run, but I can't exactly let them starve in the streets either. He understands this too. If you know of someone who could take them in, please let me know. I'd like these kittens to go to good homes.

**Hi Alphonse, I'm back for another question but this one is for Edward, mostly so he doesn't feel left out. Hey Ed, are you ever going to cut your hair or just keep it long?**

Brother says that this question is absolutely not worth his time, so I guess that I'll answer it for him. I'm pretty sure that he's never going to cut his hair. He let it grow long when we started our journey because he refused to stop somewhere and get it cut, and I guess that he decided he actually liked it. Now it's his own personal style, and he still refuses to get it cut. Not that I mind, since he does look good with long hair, but he kind of stands out. Alfons made me cut my hair, so it would make sense for Brother to cut his, but I don't think he will.

**Greetings, Alphonse,**

**It is quite pleasant to meet someone who is, in fact, from a world other than this one. I myself was transported here as punishment from the greater powers and forced to live out a mortal life as a human female. It is quite humiliating.**

**In any case, you have piqued my curiosity. How do you and your brother, Edward, make a living?**

**To elaborate: How do you make money while traveling? I am relatively convinced that the Thule Society would not have paid your alter, Alfons, as he is dead for one, and for another, Edward would be a prime target as he is guilty for the ruination of their plans, am I right?**

**Unfortunately, my human 'sister' is currently squealing like a Kroth demon and sighing with starry-eyes at the thought of your brother singing in public for money. I honestly hope that it has not come to that.**

**Awaiting your reply.**

Well, you're wrong in that Alfons is dead, and you're also wrong in that they wouldn't have paid him. It was in the contract that he would get paid, and he did…though the money didn't go directly to him. It went to his remaining family, who thought, and still think, that he is dead.

As to our earning a living, we help people out from time to time doing odd jobs, particularly repairing broken tools and such. We don't know how to use alchemy here, but we're still pretty good with repairing things without it. Our teacher taught us how to function without alchemy always being at our side. I'm so grateful to her for that.

Also, while the prospect of singing in public for money sounds appealing in a way, I don't think that that's a very good idea. We're trying to keep a low profile, and singing in public would only draw attention. Brother has a very good singing voice, and I can play the violin, believe it or not, so we'd be able to do it quite well, but the risks outweigh the benefits. We'll just have to keep surviving as best we can.

Anyway, Brother's bothering me to finish up so that he can read what I wrote. I think he's really bored this time, since we haven't found any books lying around in this new place, and he has nothing to read but what I write. I'll have to go out and find some books for him. In the meantime, feel free to ask me any more questions you'd like answered, and I'll do my best to give an answer. Take care, and have a nice day.

Alphonse Elric


	7. Chapter 7

This is Alphonse again. I asked around and found a neighbor that had a book, so Brother's currently occupied with reading it. Hopefully I'll have enough time to answer all these questions before he gets done. He's a pretty fast reader.

I noticed that some of you were pretty surprised about my mentioning that Alfons Heiderich didn't actually die by gunshot, since you'd heard otherwise. Like I said, we faked his death to protect him, because his involvement in the whole affair put him in danger. Further, I had previously mentioned the existence of other parallel worlds. For all I know, the account some of you heard where you were absolutely sure he died then could have been from another world where the shot was actually fatal to him, but it wasn't in this one. I am telling you the truth as I see it through my eyes, and whether it matches up with what you've previously heard is irrelevant.

**How did you feel when Lieutenant Hawkeye suddenly gave up living, when you both found out that Lust supposedly killed Colonel Mustang? If she hadn't been the one to snap and use all of her bullets on Lust, how do you think you would have reacted? How were you able to stay so calm and composed? What was it like realizing he was still alive?**

Actually, I didn't feel much, believe it or not. It's kind of hard to explain, but when the world starts roaring right by you like that, all your emotions go with it. I didn't have time to process what was happening, so I didn't feel anything either. I was more focused on figuring out what was going on than trying to decide the proper emotion. I did react emotionally later though. It was sort of a relief to know that I wouldn't have been able to sleep in that armor even if I tried, since I had a restless night trying to sort out my thoughts and feelings associated with what occurred. I went through a lot of "what if" scenarios in my head.

Honestly though, I don't know what would have happened had things not worked out as they did. All I know is how I did react, which was to pretty much shut down and go numb to my surroundings. I was indeed scared, but fear wasn't at the forefront of my thoughts, so I didn't notice it until the situation was over.

As far as how I felt when I realized that Colonel Mustang was still alive, it was something of a combination of relief, confusion, and that ever-lingering fear. I don't know why I felt fear at that time, but I guess that fear is an unreasonable emotion. Maybe I was still afraid of the homunculi, or maybe I was afraid of Colonel Mustang himself. To this day, I still can't figure out what I was afraid of at that time, but I was afraid of something. I was able to get it under control though, and was mostly just relieved to find that he had survived the ordeal, and concerned for his wellbeing, considering the damage he took. Thankfully, we made it through that.

**Under what conditions would you kill someone? I mean, making a calm, rational decision to kill someone – not the kind where you barely know what you're doing before you've pulled the trigger, stuck in the knife, et cetera, since that kind of doesn't count.**

What a gruesome question. Why in the world would you want to know that? I'm not the killing type, as I'm sure you know. I make a lot of empty threats, and seem to joke around about wanting to murder someone a lot…but for the most part, that's because I'm the least likely to do it. I admit that I'd probably lose all my sensibility if something happened to my brother…but even that is just guessing. In all honesty, I don't know for sure how I'd react in such a terrible situation, and I don't really even want to think about it. Like I said, I'm not the killing type. I'm done with this question. Next one.

**Under what circumstances would you let your brother die, or even kill him yourself? I'm talking about euthanasia, sacrificing him for the whole country, etc.**

Sigh. This question's worse than the last one. Why do you people want to know such things, is it just so that you can know my weaknesses? I don't like to think about things like this. Like Brother always tells me, we have to look ahead and focus on our dreams in order to get anywhere, not dwell on our problems and worries. I prefer not to think about things like this, ever.

But let it be known that under no circumstances would I **_EVER_** kill my brother, understood? I cannot hate him, I cannot get that angry at him, and I cannot bring my hand against him to end his life. I love my brother more than my own life, and I would never do anything to harm him. I don't know why you sent those past two questions, but I hope that this clears things up. I'm not the killing type, and I would never kill my brother under any circumstances. Ever.

**How different do you think it would have been if you were the one to lose your leg, then having to sacrifice your arm to get your brother back (if you would have done so at all, and would have been able to think of it), while your brother lost his whole body? Would you have been able to handle the auto-mail pain? Since you claim he's more of a genius than you, would you still be likely to have passed the State Alchemist exam? Also, assuming you managed to do everything, how different overall would the journey probably be like?**

Whoa whoa whoa! Slow down! Too many questions at once! I'd never really gotten a chance to even think about what it would have been like had it been opposite, but I'm sure it would have been different. I'm sure that I still would have sacrificed my arm for my brother and brought him back the way he did me, since he had learned that information from the Gate. His being a bit smarter than me must've played a toll though, so I probably would have had to sacrifice more than he did. I might have lost my life in the process.

Assuming that I lived through it though, I would have acted in a similar way to my brother in feeling guilty for his condition. That just seems to be something that the two of us share in common. Whether we would have become State Alchemists in order to regain our original bodies is hard to say, since I was the one who had suggested against it. Brother would have pretty much had to push me into the decision, which I doubt he would have done. He's pretty protective. We most likely would have sought out the Philosopher's Stone in a different way, though I'm not quite sure how we would have found the traveling expenses and the leads we needed.

In answer to whether I could have passed the State Alchemist exam, yes, I could have, if I wanted to. I simply would have needed to have a regular human body, which I would have had one if it had been opposite like you're suggesting. I'm still not sure if I would have even taken the exam or not. I've never much liked the military, but Brother wanted to take advantage of the benefits they were offering, so he was willing to become one of their dogs.

**Do you check to make sure all the mail you get is actually safe to open? There could be bombs, poison, some kind of gas, or anything in these – since our letters can get to you, it's very possible that some of them might be from an enemy.**

That's never been a problem in any place I've ever lived, so it hadn't entered my mind to check my mail before I opened it. Why, do things like that happen where you're from? What kind of world are you living in? If you're indeed in a different time, I hope that I don't live to see it. A world where one can't trust their own mail is not a world I want to find myself in.

**Hey Al, I have two questions. One, were you shocked to find that your whole live story was written in a manga and made into an anime? Two, what did you think when you heard the songs Vic Mignogna (he's Ed's voice actor for the anime) sang for the anime?**

Um…what? First off…what's a "manga" and what's an "anime"? Maybe I'll be able to answer your question right when you inform me of that. I also don't know who Vic Mignogna is. It sounds by the way you're talking that he's someone that's pretending to be my brother. I'm not sure if I like that. Maybe I just don't understand your culture. If you explain what you're talking about, I'd be happy to try and answer.

**Hello, Alphonse;**

**I was just wondering – when you were in Lior, fighting Kimbley with Scar, what did it feel like? I mean, did you have an adrenaline rush or something? Okay, I know that having a near-fatal experience isn't necessarily the best thing to reflect on; especially those involving Kimbley, but I crave first-person references. It's a journalist thing.**

**Also, my congratulations on living your life as you have been for the past fifteen years and not losing any of your sanity in the process. That takes courage and resilience. And I feel a bit sorry for you, since you have to keep a low profile. Life, in my opinion, should be experienced with zest and zeal, and you should have the freedom to go anywhere and do anything you may. Unfortunately, this is not the case.**

**Good luck. In this world, you most definitely will need it.**

Well, adrenaline is technically a function of the physical body, but if you want to speak metaphorically, I had a sort of adrenaline rush back then, yes. It's a sort of reaction that I guess I'd embedded into my soul and programmed myself to react that way in that sort of situation. I'm not sure what would have happened had I not programmed myself to react that way, since adrenaline wasn't in my armor to cause a rush.

I also felt that that, of all times, was a time when I really wished I could cry. I thought that I was going to die without my brother even around to realize what was happening. It hurt to think that I might never see him again, and that by the time he found out what was happening to me, it would be too late. There was also the thought that in the process of my body being turned into a bomb, that I might explode and kill my brother, which I really didn't want. True, we would have both been able to figure out what happened to those in the afterlife together, but I didn't want any harm coming to him all the same. Maybe the afterlife is better than physical life, but I guess that love thinks in strange ways, doesn't it?

Heh, don't feel sorry for us. We get to be together again, and that's all that matters to me. True, life is a bit difficult, but it's not like life was easy before we came to this world, just a little bit different. I'm just glad that we can journey together through the hardships rather than try to struggle alone. Those two years in Amestris when Brother wasn't there were the loneliest years of my life, and I hope never to have to go through that again. Anyway, thanks for your concern. I appreciate it.

**Guten Tag! Wie gehts?**

**Also, is Ed equally gifted with science as he is in alchemy?**

Es ist also nett, jemand zu hören, auf Deutsch für einmal zu sprechen. Wie geht es Ihnen? Sind Sie Deutscher, oder sind Sie von irgendwo sonst?

However, since you seem to know English too, I'll speak in English from now on for the benefit of the others who are reading.

But is Brother equally gifted with science as alchemy? You're joking, right? Alchemy IS a science, so of course he's gifted with science! The science of alchemy requires knowledge of physics, chemistry, and advanced mathematics for starters, and even more subjects if you choose to get more advanced…which of course, both of us did. The alchemy that we performed contained a great many symbols carried over from the old-fashioned alchemy masters. A lot of people in our world don't really understand what those alchemists were talking about, but we managed to understand their philosophies well enough to borrow some of their methods. I've seen a few parallels in this world's alchemy texts. A lot of the symbols we used are referred to as the Hermetica here, apparently tracing back to ancient Egypt or something...I'll have to study the history a bit more to understand it. The concepts of the symbols are about the same though.

We also had a lot of things that came in from astrology, which was definitely borrowed from the ancients, as most Amestrian citizens don't subscribe to the belief in astrology anymore. In truth, neither did my brother and I, but we liked the older philosophies a lot, and the astrological symbols helped us to concentrate on our goal, especially on something complicated.

In closing, let it be known that I do indeed speak German. If any of you speak it and would like to write to me in German, I would be happy to respond in it. Just please be forgiving of any grammatical errors as you would for my English. Remember that German and English are my second and third languages.

**Thank you for replying to my question. I do realize that my situation is pathetic in comparison to yours, but she's really my best friend, whether or not we admit it, we do love each other even though we fight a lot. Um, I don't think I can imagine Ed not being able to read all the time. I feel bad for you both. Ed must be bored out of his mind and you must be trying to calm him…which is probably a pointless mission, but good luck! Anyway, is there any way that you two can further your educations? I mean, go to a college yourselves? I know that you wouldn't suit in a school, but college…it has to have crossed your mind.**

I like the sound of that, though I'm not sure how feasible that plan is. Maybe someday in the future a path will open up that will allow us to attend a college without worrying about getting caught or something, but that option's not available at present. Technically, we're illegal immigrants here, and we wouldn't belong no matter where we went in this world. Brother has periodically thrown out the suggestion that we take on the identities of our doubles here, but I really don't like the sound of that. Even though his double is most likely dead and wouldn't care, his double was British, not German, so that poses a problem. My double isn't even dead yet, though everyone thinks he is. Either way, we'd have a hard time getting a hold of the paperwork to convince the authorities that we really were alive and not dead like the records show, and that takes a lot of work. I doubt we could pull it off.

However, I know that we can't keep running forever, so I'm sure that a path will open up sooner or later. Either we'll find a way to become citizens of some place in this world, or we'll find a way back to our own. It's hard to say what the future will hold, but I'll hope for the best.

Above all, even if we can never find a way to attend a normal college, we'll always continue expanding our minds on our own through constant study. That's just the sort of people we are. We can never seem to learn enough. You could say that we're perpetual children in that respect. If you don't believe me on that last statement, then you should see us when we're teasing each other about something. You'll change your mind very quickly. **(Ed: Al, if you're referring to that banana cream pie bit, I thought we'd settled that. I keep telling you that the cat ate that, and not me!)** Oh, and if he mentions anything about the banana cream pie bit, just keep in mind that there were knife marks in the bottom of the dish. **(Ed: So…Al's got a smart cat?)** The only thing that's confusing to me is why he would eat banana cream, since I didn't think he liked it. **(Ed: See? Further proof!)**

Phew!...I haven't even answered all the questions I received last time, but this is already getting pretty long. I think that I'll just quit here for now and answer the rest at a later date. Don't worry, those questions that have already been asked will indeed be answered, but from now on, I may have to start picking and choosing which questions I answer. Please don't be hurt if I don't choose your question. Consider it motivation to make your questions count so that I'll want to choose them.

Anyway, this is Alphonse Elric, signing off! **(Ed: What? Al, where did you pick that up?)**


	8. Chapter 8

I am once again here to answer a few more of your questions. I spent a few days going around and borrowing as many books as I possibly could from neighbors since Brother is an incredibly fast reader, and he sometimes likes to jump from book to book because one of them will start to get kind of boring. Maybe he'll let me write in peace now that he is occupied with all those books.

**Hi again Al,  
You must be very busy most of the time since you are always traveling and answering our questions. I wish that I could be that dedicated. Though it does make me curious as to how you are receiving our letters, sometimes I think it is best to not over analyze things. But thank you for taking the time to answer us.**

Have you run into very many more doubles? I think you have already had a question similar to this one, but I really want to know if you have found Winry's double. Also, if you did find her do you think Ed would like her? I mean he and the Winry from Amestris had seemed to like each other but it never went past that, so I guess this is more like a if Ed had a second chance with Winry (even just her double) do you think he would take it?

Good luck with the cats. My mother-in-law lives on a farm and has about a million of them there so I was thinking that if we could figure out a way to get them there, I know she would not mind adding a few more. But there is the problem that we seem to be in different times, literally, and I live across an ocean from you. If you can think of anything let me know.  
Until next time.

Well, I honestly don't know how your letters are getting to us either, since no one from this location can ever keep track of us. One of you made a little joke awhile back about a secret agent gathering all your letters and then traveling back in time to deliver them to me. I suppose that that's about as good an explanation as any, though I can't say that it makes much logical sense. Like you said, it's best not to over analyze things.

Most of the doubles that my brother and I run into are just casual acquaintances that we knew back in Amestris, nobody incredibly important to us. It's still quite jolting to see the familiar faces all the same. As you undoubtedly know, there are a few important faces we've run into, such as Alfons, Hughes, and Gracia, but most of the rest are just acquaintances, or rather, our acquaintances' doubles.

So, sadly, no, we haven't met Winry's double, though it would be nice if we did sooner or later. I don't really know how we'd react to meeting her. It would either be exciting or awkward. Apparently Brother was excited when he met my double, but he was secretly in love with Winry, so I don't know how he'd react to her. As to him trying to get with her, I really don't know. He felt guilty regarding Noah, thinking he was betraying Winry…he might feel the same way about her double.

Hmmm…that would pose quite a problem, trying to transport cats across time and space. If we could find out the answer to that one, we'd also transport ourselves back home. Who knows though, maybe we'll figure it out yet. Just curious, am I even alive in your time, or do you know? I just figure that it would be interesting to find out how old I've gotten.

**Hi, umm Al, were you and Wrath friends before he died? And if so, what does Ed think about that?**

Wrath and I weren't what you might call "buddies", but we had made peace with each other, so we were sort of like friends, but more along the lines of acquaintances. If we were any closer, I would not have been able to do what I did in taking his life, though it still hurt all the same. He was in great pain, so I suppose it was an act of mercy, especially since he wanted me to, but it was still hard to do.

Brother actually doesn't really care whether I was friends with a homunculus or not. He realizes that they had minds, and when they weren't being manipulated by some power hungry tyrant, that they could act just like ordinary human beings. He's never thought it strange that I treated one like a human being, particularly since he did the same thing, with Lust. She had come to her senses and realized that the person she was following was just a tyrant, and decided to think on her own, so Brother treated her like she was human. We both believe that anything with a mind should be treated fairly, whether it is labeled "human" or not. There are unfortunate times that call for unfortunate measures, but the rest of the time we just try to let them be.

**What music do you listen to, homeboy?**

Heh, I hadn't really given that much thought at present, but let's see…I tend to prefer music that is spiritually and emotionally uplifting, so I enjoy a lot of the classical works, especially by composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin. Also, anything that is soft and mentally soothing is refreshing to me. I play the violin, so I really enjoy violin music, but I also enjoy music created by the piano, flute, harp, or just about anything actually.

When I was younger, the people in my town used to meet at the town square periodically for various festivals and celebrations, and sing a variety of Amestrian folk songs which had a beat one could dance to. To this day, I still enjoy folk music a lot, though I must admit that playing my violin as a fiddle is a bit tricky at times. I do try though, especially if I can talk my brother into dancing to it. He does sometimes. We used to dance a lot at those old festivals. I kind of miss it.

**Hm...**

I have a question. Particularly to you, Al.

I'm sure this will be quite awkward, indeed. But I'm an Ed. You told me yourself. If you remember, Al...

Anyways, dear brother, I need to know something. I indeed do. I know why you dress like me, and if you recall, many summaries of the movie say that those are Ed's actual clothes. The point I'm asking is, why don't they look like mine?

I've seen the movie countless times, but if you recall, my attention span isn't the biggest in the world. But I do pay attention to some of the details. However, I cannot...just CAN'T remember...if it was Izumi who got those clothes for him or if he got them from someone else. Eh...anyways, I'll be waiting to hear from you, Alphonse. And, give Alphons my best regards.

See ya!  
-Edward Elric

Okay…You may be another Edward, I don't deny that possibility, but you're sure saying a lot of things that don't make a lot of sense to me. Perhaps you've managed to get into the same timeframe as the rest of these letter writers are in? How did you ever get there? Wait, don't answer that question. I don't want to know.

I don't know what you mean about a movie, so I'll just pretend that you didn't say it at all, since I don't understand it anyway. I'm assuming though that you're asking something about the clothes I went around wearing just before I came over here. Regardless of what your sources have told you, the only item in those clothes that was yours, I mean, Brother's, was the red jacket. Everything else was mine. I'd assembled an outfit to somewhat match what Brother had worn for several years in an attempt to have it remind me of him. Yes, even with my memories mostly gone, I still remembered his appearance during those four years. Even the Gate can't erase our brotherly bond, after all. And yes, our Teacher helped me somewhat with obtaining the clothes, though I was the one who assembled the costume for the most part.

Of course, even if you are another Ed, let me clarify that my brother doesn't have a short attention span. I realize that each double would be a little bit different from the rest. Alfons and I aren't the same by any means, so I can relate. My brother sometimes gets bored with what he's doing, so he'll go and look for something else to do, but as long as his interest is held in what he's participating in, his attention will be held almost indefinitely. He's worse than me in that regard.

**Oh, and Al? I DO TOO ACKNOWLEDGE OTHER'S EXISTENCE...when I want to... -pout-**

Frankly, if you were trying to contradict what I said at the beginning, you didn't do a very good job. You pretty much just admitted that what I said was right…though Brother does do that a lot.

**Hey Alphonse!  
I just wanna ask Ed something. Over on this side of the gate they've come up with 2 types of drinks called Chocolate milk and Strawberry Milk. In other words, milk that doesn't taste like milk. It's kind of like Stew in a way. It's got milk in it but you can't taste it. The only difference is that Stew is hot and has vegetables in it. ANYWAY, have you ever tried it? You might grow taller if you drink it. And then nobody can make fun of you.**

Well, bye now. Ta-ta!  
When Cheesecake Attacks

Well…as I'm sure you all know by now, Brother doesn't particularly care about this project of mine except to read it afterwards and occasionally make fun of it, so I highly doubt he would want to bother answering this question. I'll be happy to answer it though.

While I admit to having never heard of Strawberry Milk, I have most definitely heard of Chocolate Milk. We have that over on our side of the Gate as well, so Brother has indeed tried it, but only as a little child. Mom was trying to see if he'd be willing to drink that and reap the benefits of milk, since he really likes chocolate a lot. ((You should see how he reacts when he gets a hold of some of this German chocolate here.)) He didn't like it though, at all. He just kept ranting about how the milk ruined the taste of the chocolate and stuff like that. I highly doubt he would react any better for Strawberry Milk.

In truth, Brother's distaste for milk seems to be more than just not liking the taste. It makes him somewhat sick to his stomach it seems, though that might be entirely mental. What caused that, I don't know. He can certainly handle milk when it is in something, but not when it's either plain milk or flavored milk. I won't claim to understand it, as I never have. I've just accepted that as part of Brother's behavior, because he's…well…Brother.

**PERSERVERE THROUGH THE FATIGUE, ALPHONSE!! FIGHT IT! HAHAHA! That's right...I'm crazy and yet you keep talking to me. I'm just like a lost kitty and your replies are food. Now I'll never leave. HA HAA! Um...I wanna hear about the pie incident. That's it. I'm really pretty easily amused.**

I'm glad that you said you were crazy first, so that I wouldn't have to say it myself and sound rude. Well, I have been rude before, Brother tells me I should be rude more often, but I tend to try and avoid being that way. Is that a bad habit or a good habit? Never mind.

Anyway, as to the banana cream pie incident, what happened was that Gracia gave us a pie that she had made, and we took it home and left it on our kitchen counter. Brother doesn't like banana cream pie, so he had just been polite in taking it, and I was planning on eating it later. The odd thing was that when we came back home later that day, we found an empty pie pan on the floor with knife marks in the bottom of it, indicating that someone had eaten it. I honestly don't know who did, and the thought that someone probably broke into our house is kind of scary, but I try to laugh these things off. At least they only ate the pie.

**Ok it seems like you didn't get my last question so I'll explain it. One: a manga is a story that is drawn out and to have people say something the put it in quotes in a bubble right next to them trust me it's better then it sounds. Two: anime is a show normally based off a manga that is kinda the same thing only it's a moving picture and to have people say things you have voice actors who basically come in and say the thing that they'd like the character to say. Vic Mignogna is the voice actor for Ed.  
Now where you shocked to find out your whole life story was written in an anime and manga? Two what did you thing of Vic Mignogna? And three how do you feel that in the Japanese anime a girl played your part (and a slightly high-pitched girl at that)**

Too be honest, I still don't get what you're trying to say. You don't seem to realize that I'm seriously not from your time, and don't know what everyone else in your time would know. Was I shocked to hear about this manga thing? Um, no…I still don't understand quite what manga is…I'd have to see it to understand it. If it's a shocking thing, then I guess I'd be shocked once I saw it.

I know what motion pictures are…I'm guessing that that's what you're calling anime…but I don't know what you mean by "voice actors". Are those people that perform the characters' parts on stage? I've seen people play the piano at a showing of a particular film, but I haven't yet seen anyone voice over for the characters, though that doesn't sound like a bad idea. So are you saying that a motion picture was made of us? That would be interesting. I don't know quite where they got the story, but maybe someone who knows us told them.

As to the rest of your questions, I really don't understand what you're talking about, so I can't quite give a satisfactory answer. I would suppose that if someone was trying to depict me in my younger years, that they would probably ask a woman to play my part so that they could capture my personality before my voice began to change. If it was in my older years, then I wouldn't really understand that, but I don't really know what I'm talking about in regards to these questions you're asking.

**Hi me again. Ok, I know I'm bombarding you with a lot of questions and everything but I like have A.D.D and everything and if I don't my head will explode. But how would you (and Ed) feel if I told you that there are millions of girls out there that draw pictures of getting married to you kissing you, doing other stuff I shouldn't mention, etc. And there are girls that have your pictures in their closet that kiss it every night (the only reason why I know this stuff is because I have yet to find normal friends to hang out with).**

Okay…let's just say that that was too much information…I shall pretend I didn't hear that. I have nothing against girls having a crush on anyone, even if it happens to be me or my brother, but there is such a thing as going too far to the point of obsession, and when one gets to that point, it makes me kind of uneasy. I've learned from experience that while obsessions can be a helpful driving force in one's life, they can also be detrimental. Hopefully your friends will grow out of their obsessions once they find the one they're actually supposed to be with, because I know that they're definitely not marrying us.

**I thought up another question for you Al and that is this; what was your initial reaction when you started receiving all this mail? Furthermore how do you know where to send it all too?**

Um, I actually don't know. Sometimes the things in my life cause me to get so numb that I don't even think about the bizarre things that happen in it. When I started getting all this mail, I basically just thought, "I'm getting a lot of mail. Interesting." I just didn't question it, for some reason. As to how I know where to send it to, I just put the letters back in the mailbox, and they disappear and are replaced with new questions. I don't know who is taking them and bringing new mail, but frankly, I don't really care. It gives me something to pass the time, so I just don't worry about it.

**Okay, I have a question- though I think I may know the answer. Say you met someone who could grant your wish of going back home to your world. But the price you'd have to pay was your knowledge of alchemy- as in, you -completely- forgot everything you knew about it. What would you do?**

-Fang-

P.S.- Just thought up another question- what would be the first thing you'd do if you ever get back home?

Eh…as to the answer to that first question, I'm not exactly sure. Alchemy caused a lot of problems in our lives, though we both love the study of it tremendously. Is it worth giving up in order to get home? To be honest, I don't really know. It's definitely a part of our lives, but I'm not sure just how much a part of our lives it is. It actually causes one to wonder what would happen differently if we had grown up without alchemy in our lives. That's pretty hard to imagine.

However, if we ever did get back home, the very first thing we'd do, or at least, I'd do, would be to go and check on Winry, and make sure that she's alright. She's always been so faithful and patient with us that she deserves to get the first attention from us when we come back. I'm not quite sure what is on Brother's agenda, though I certainly know that visiting Winry is quite high on his list too. If we ever do get back, I hope that we land in Reisenburgh, so that visiting Winry first is the most logical thing to do.

**Hey Al,**

Did you ever notice that some people on our side of the gate are kind of picky on what they wear?

Actually, I hadn't paid a lot of attention. I highly doubt that it would be that much different from the people on our side of the Gate though. We're all people, the exact same human beings. Every one of us has made the same stupid mistakes or experienced the same emotions throughout each and every one of our lives. We all know what it feels like to laugh and cry, to gain and lose, to live and love. These things are common no matter where you live, whether in this world or that one, in a civilized country or a primitive culture, or even if you're on another planet, supposing that there are inhabited planets elsewhere. It's called being human, and we all experience it, no matter where we are.

**Hiya, Mr. Al.**

I have some questions. (And if you don't have the time to answer them, that's just fine with me. :D)

When did you find out that you can put bits of your soul in suits of armor? (And still be able to move around in your real body.) What does it feel like? (Sorry if someone already asked you that!)

This is to both you and Ed: How would you feel if someone, whom you never met, start to write a similar story to what you lived/will live? (or something like that.)

**...'kay, I am going to stop before I start to ask even MORE stranger questions. XD**

I always have time to answer questions. I actually have a LOT of time, all the time. Constant running and hiding tends to give one more time than they'd really care to have, and Brother tends to hoard all the books he can find, so I'm stuck writing to occupy myself. ((And then he reads what I've written too. I can't seem to win.))

Anyway, my discovering that I could put bits of my soul into suits of armor was a sort of gradual process. I didn't start out knowing that I could manipulate armor specifically. Needless to say, there were no suits of armor to experiment with at Teacher's house, where I spent the majority of those two years in Amestris. The way I discovered it was partly due to the dreams that I kept having about Brother where I felt like I was actually there, and partly due to the fact that I seemed to be able to make objects fly around whenever I got really upset.

I quickly learned to control my anger once I discovered that I was the one responsible for the anomalies I was experiencing with my soul making objects move that I wasn't touching, and I started experimenting with it to try and see if I could move things deliberately. Eventually, I did master the skill with the small objects, and I moved to bigger and bigger objects. By the time of those suits of armor in Lior, I had managed to attain quite a bit of control, so I was confident that even though I had never placed my soul in a suit of armor before, that I would most certainly be capable of doing so. Those suits of armor were certainly bigger than the things I usually manipulated, but the fact that I could move them like a human body made them easier to move with my mind.

In regards to your second question, I'm not exactly sure. I might either be flattered at the honor of someone wanting to tell our story, or I might be horrified at the thought of our life story being spread out for everyone to read. Of course, I could take a stance anywhere between these two extremes as well, and the chance is good that I would. After all, all of you who are writing to me from what seems like the future apparently know our story somehow, so I'm guessing that it got out in some way by then. I guess that I'll just have to accept it when and if that happens.**  
**

**Dear Alphonse,  
What do you think the world that you are in and Amestris will be like in the future? Just wondering. By the way, can you say hi to Ed for me?**

Just to clarify for you, I am an alchemist, not a fortune-teller. I don't know the future, and I have no idea what is going to happen in the future of either world. I admit that I suspect that this world is not done warring with each other, though my brother and I are trying to resolve that if we can. As for Amestris, I can only hope that its government is improving now that the authority has been turned over to Parliament, rather than the Military. I honestly don't know what will happen in either world though. Only time can tell.

Now that I think about it, I do know one thing that is going to happen in this world's future. In just a few minutes, I am going to go downstairs, go outside, and go to Gracia's flower shop to see if I can talk her into making another banana cream pie. For someone to have eaten the whole thing that quickly, it must have been pretty delicious.

Oh, there's Brother knocking on the door again. That's right, we were planning on moving again today, so that we can't be tracked down. We don't have many possessions, so that shouldn't take long. I'll still get some time to ask Gracia if she'll consider making us another pie. So, I'll go for now, but keep writing to me, and I'll try to answer your questions in a timely manner this time if I possibly can.

Alphonse Elric

**P.S. This is Ed. You asked to say hi to me, so hi. Now write to Al. This is his project, not mine.**


	9. Chapter 9

Okay, people, after a long wait, I'm back. Sorry that I took so long to write anything, but you have no idea of the kind of stress one gets from being homeless. It becomes hard to get even the simplest things done, and it's easy to get depressed. If my brother wasn't here with me, I honestly don't know how I'd survive.

Another reason why I delayed answering any questions is because it seems that a lot of you don't really listen to what I say anyway, and just keep asking the same questions. Seriously, I'm not going to answer the same questions over and over. That's just silly. Ask a question, listen to my answer, and then ask a difference question or ask me to expound upon the one I did answer. Just don't ask the same one over and over again. That's not very smart.

**Why did you cut your hair at the end? I thought it was neat the way it was, maybe a little bit too much of Ed-likeness. And have you met Mustang's and/or Hawkeye's doubles?**

**Heya Al,**

Umm... Can you tell me the story of WHY Ed doesn't like milk? It's something that's been on my mind for quite awhile... If you don't know, then would you ask Ed for me?

I put these two together at once because they're examples of questions I've already been asked, so I'm not going to answer them again unless you're simply trying to get me to expound on some detail, in which case, you need to ask. Even I run out of patience, and sometimes I even run out of things to say. Yes, believe it or not world, Alphonse Elric sometimes doesn't want to talk, so he certainly doesn't want to waste his breath saying the same things over and over again. If you want to know something specific, ask it specifically.

**Edward, now that you've said that...I'LL WRITE TO YOU! Um...How would you feel if someone wrote a story where Ed's a girl?...Hm? Al, if he doesn't want to answer, read him the question...MWAHAHAHAHA! Al, I want to know your opinion on this, too!**

I don't think Brother really wants to get involved in my writing here. This is mainly to help me relax, and he entertains himself sometimes by reading what I wrote. Right now he's sleeping. I don't blame him, really. This constant running from house to house is really getting old for the both of us. It has to stop sometime. I just know it's not going to last long if we keep living like this. There has to be a solution, but I'm not sure what two illegal immigrants can do besides go home…which I seriously wish we could do.

As to writing a story where my brother is really my sister or something like that…well…considering the other sorts of things you crazy people have been writing in your letters to me, I wouldn't be too surprised. I don't think Brother would be very surprised at it either, though he might make a face or scoff at it or something. Probably nothing much worse than that. It's hard to say exactly how he'd react at this time, actually. I've got a bit of a headache, and can't think clearly, but I'll finish these replies anyway, though they'll probably sound like they're written by someone who has a headache.

**YAY! You answered my questions!**

'partly due to the fact that I seemed to be able to make objects fly around whenever I got really upset.'

That sound very interesting, and awesome. :D

And, good idea with the second answer to my last question. (Yeah, we do have your story or at least something VERY close to it. And it's awesome!)

If you or your brother ever had any kids, what would you name them?

How different to you think it be would if your father had never left?

(Eh? Ed is a chocolate lover? Tell him that a fellow chocolate lover says hi:D(oh dear, that another thing I have in common with Ed. -wonders if she should be amused or scared-)

I generally try to answer every question I get, though if I start getting too many, I may have to rethink that. Some of the questions I've received have been, let's say…challenging to answer politely, to say the least, but I still tried. I'm not trying as hard to be polite in this session of responses, so it's a good thing that the questions aren't as ridiculous as some of the ones I've received in the past. They probably wouldn't be worshipping Alphonse Elric anymore. But then, if they've never seen me depressed or angry, then they really don't know me anyway. I'm not always "cute" as I'm sure they label me. That's what my brother calls me, anyway.

As to children's names, I haven't really given it much thought at present. I'm kind of partial to naming children after the people I love most, in this case that being my brother, my mother, and Winry. Sometimes I like to come up with creative or unusual names as well, purely for the artistic value of having such a name. As far as my brother is concerned with his naming of children, I'm not sure as to his preference. He'd probably actually just let his wife name them, but that's just a guess. I'm honestly not sure. If he weren't asleep, I'd ask him, but he hasn't had much sleep the past few days, so I'm not going to disturb him.

I'm sure that things would have been very different if our father had never left us. Our mother may or may not have died anyway…that depends on what was really causing the disease she had died from. I'm sure that depression contributed to it, but whether she died purely of depression or whether it was some other kind of health issue, I'm not sure. Whatever the case, she had been suffering for years from it, and I'm not sure whether she would have gotten it regardless of whether our father left us or not. However, if our father had been there, even if she had passed on, he would have kept us from trying to bring her back. We wouldn't be here now if we had never taken that first step, so yes, our life story would have been very different, however you look at it.

And yes, Brother does indeed like chocolate, the darker and the more bitter it is, the better he likes it, for some reason. He has no qualms with milk being put in the chocolate just for the reason of it being milk, but he does prefer the taste of pure chocolate best. There are some varieties of chocolate that aren't quite so pure that he'll eat and enjoy, but his favorite usually seems to be the dark and bitter stuff. He also seems to have developed a fondness for the gummy bears we've found in this country. He's such a child. Don't give him a package of those if you expected to get any back, because you won't. He even forgets to share with me sometimes when it comes to those. ((At least he remembers to share the chocolate.))

Well, I'm going to finish this up and go and relax. My headache seems to be subsiding somewhat, but I might go and join brother in a nap. That might do me some good. Anyway, until next time, send me some questions, make sure that they're questions I haven't already answered, and I'll try to answer you as soon as I can. Goodbye for now.

Alphonse Elric


	10. Chapter 10

I'm sorry that it took me so long to get around to responding to all your letters. Brother and I have been on the move quite frequently as of late, and frankly, we're a bit overwhelmed. I'm amazed that I was even able to hold onto all your letters in the hopes that I could find a quiet time to reply to them when I found a quiet moment. Well, Brother is sleeping now, so it can't really get any quieter than that...unless he starts talking in his sleep. I can always tell if he's having a nightmare or dreaming about Winry or something, because he becomes very vocal when he's having those kinds of dreams. Hopefully he won't be upset that I'm talking about it. **Ed: I'll let you live this time, but only because you're writing in ink and can't erase these thoughts that you seem to randomly spew out, and paper is too scarce to just throw away.**

Anyway, let's see what I can answer, if anything.

**Hello.  
Before I give my question, I should warn you, that my English isn't very  
good. I'm from Germany and... well...  
I have some vocabulary problems with this language. Nonetheless, my  
question:  
I know that you, Ed, and Envy always were the greatest enemies, but...  
wasnt it a shock to hear, that he was in fact your half brother?  
I mean, it doesn't excuse his deeds, especially the murder of Hughes and  
other persons (by the way: during your last years in Amestris did you ever  
again meet Hughes wife and when, how are she and his daughter doing?)  
but...  
can you imagine, that under other circumstances (e.g. if Envy hadn't gone  
totally crazy and psychotic about 400 years ago)  
he could have developed a better personality?  
I'm personally an half orphan (my father died some years ago)  
and also if that's still a greater difference to Envy's backround  
(in my opinion it must be for some people a hell on earth to be immortal and  
to feel something like emotional pain for all eternity) I somehow...  
well, he was psychotic and he deserved punishment for what he did. But  
somehow I could understand him. **

**Before I go, two other questions:  
First, did you get in trouble with some of the other members of the Thule  
Society after their failed invasion in Amestris?**

**Second: Which cities in Germany and other parts of our world did you until  
today visit with your brother?**

**Ich wünsche noch einen schönen Tag**

I took the liberty to correct some of your spelling and grammar. I hope that was okay. I understand what it's like trying to form words and phrases in another language.

It's okay, I admire you for even trying to communicate in a language that is not your own, especially knowing that you could have very well written the entire letter in German and I would have understood it. That takes quite a bit of stamina, and stamina is what allows a person to learn a second ((or third)) language. In my case, my stamina was combined with need. I wouldn't have been able to communicate had I not learned these other two languages, English and German. No one here speaks Amestrian other than my brother and myself, so we had no choice but to learn the languages we encountered most often. Brother is still learning more languages though. I'm amazed at how quickly he is able to learn them when he has a book in hand. I guess that boredom is helpful in language learning too.

On to the second comment: Yes, it was quite shocking to hear that Envy was indeed our half-brother...at least sort of. Being a homunculus, he wasn't technically related to us in any way, as well as considering that our father had inhabited a different body at that time than the one he gave us life in, so we really share no genetic material. However, the fact that our father had brought the being that was resurrected as Envy into the world was pretty shocking. It was so much so that it gave Envy the advantage because Brother hesitated, and so Envy was able to kill him. If I hadn't been able to bring Brother back then...I don't know where I would be now. I'm not sure that I even want to think about it, since the worst didn't happen, it just came close.

Actually, we haven't had much trouble from the Thule society since that day. I think that they're afraid of us. After all, if they were to try and turn us in to some authority based on the grounds of...whatever...who would believe them? We personally haven't tried to even hint to anyone since then that we were from another world. It causes too much trouble, though creating cover stories is also a lot of trouble, but it does seem safer. Our accent isn't exactly German, which causes a few problems when trying to convince people of our origins, but depending on the person we're talking to, we can usually come up with something they'll believe. We've had to use a lot of false names to get by though. It's not very fun, but we're alive. That's the most important thing.

Where have we been in your world up until this point? Well, we've stayed in Europe at present. It's hard to travel elsewhere without money, and that we don't really have at this point, nor do we have any form of identification, so we oftentimes have to sneak ourselves into other countries if we're crossing borders. I never would have thought myself to be a vagrant like this if you had asked me when I was younger, but apparently, that's the life path that has been laid out for me. We've mainly been to Germany, France, and England, though we've occasionally crossed the border into some other country if that is what is needed at that moment. We seem to always come back to Germany though. It feels more like home than anywhere else in this world. I suppose that that's because Germany is the alternate version of Amestris. Well, that's just a guess, but it was the only thing I could come up with.

I don't honestly remember all the cities we've been to, not even in Germany, but I do know that we've definitely been around Munich and Berlin. We're planning on making a trip to Riesenburg as well, as soon as we can find a way to get there. It's spelled similarly to the name of our hometown in Amestris, Reisenburgh, so we wonder if it is the alternate version of our hometown. We might even meet more doubles of the people we knew back in our world, like the double of Winry, or even the double of Mom. She might still be alive in this world. I would love to find out.

I am getting way too talkative for just the first letter, so I should probably close here and move on to the next. Thank you for writing.

Ich wünsche alle Ihre Tage, um prachtvoll zu sein außerdem.

**Your brother calls you cute? Curious... My apologies for your headache . Why  
don't you two flee the country? America is the land of illegal  
immigrants...why not go there?  
Give your brother orange chocolate...or mint ...both are my favorites!**

Sigh. Yes, my brother calls me cute. I'd return the favor, but he insists that he gives out compliments with a no-return policy. I say that he's just coming up with a creative excuse to not allow anyone to call him cute. But that's Brother for you. I'm used to it by now. I grew up with him, so my mind has already been messed up by him. And don't worry about my headache, it's been long gone.

We've actually pondered going to America from time to time, what with people constantly telling us how heavenly it is and about how much opportunity there is there, but we're still a bit skeptical. This world isn't really that much different from our world, and we already knew that there was no magical country in our world, so why would there be one here? The government is corrupt everywhere, so is it worth it to try and flee? I must admit though, it's still tempting to give it a try, but it's a lot of work to leave the country, especially if you have to cross an ocean to do so. We'll give it some thought though, and if the opportunity presents itself, we'll decide then.

Orange chocolate and mint chocolate...I have to agree, both of those are pretty good, but I don't get to eat them very often. Most of the chocolate that we find gets eaten before I see it by the chocolate maniac. I suppose I can't complain if it keeps him happy, but I'd like to have SOME of the chocolate! I'm joking, actually. He divides it up evenly before he even takes a single bite, but he does frequently come to me after he's eaten his and asks, "Are you going to eat that?" When he gives me that look, I have a hard time saying no, so he usually ends up with about three fourths of the chocolate, but that's alright. I don't need as much as he does to feel satisfied.

**Hey Al, was that Ed's coat you were wearing?**

The coat, yes, but the rest of the outfit, no. Brother left his coat behind when he went through the Gate to this world, but he kept the clothes he was wearing, so I had to fabricate my own outfit. It wasn't exactly the same as his, but it reminded me of him. Contrary to popular belief, my memories of those four years of travelling weren't actually erased, more like covered up. Occasionally, something would surface, and I frequently saw these visions of Brother in his black clothes and red coat. Wearing the same thing, or a close approximation of it, helped me to feel closer to him during those two years I was searching for him.

**Hey Al, have you and Ed ever considered trying to make your way to America?  
Land of Opportunity and all that, plus a place where no one would be likely to  
recognize you.**

Hmmm...this seems to be a popular topic this time around. Is there some reason why you all want us to come to America? Maybe you're all actually IN America? Just a random guess, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Honestly, I don't see what the point of us moving to America would be if you're just trying to get us closer to where you are, since we're still separated by time, unless you have a means of traveling through time. Apparently your letters do. If you ever learn the secret, let me know. It could be interesting to know a trick like that, though it might just make things worse. It's hard to say at this point.

**Oh, sorry for asking questions you already had. I didn't see that. Maybe  
because it was two o' clock. In the morning. **

I'll ask another question: What would you feel like if Edward got sent to  
war? (Oh, a war is coming up, for your information- Maybe someone already said  
that, I don't know)

And do you have any contact with Hughes on this side? And is his name Maes  
here too? Did he marry Gracia or does he need a kick in the pants to pop the  
question? 

It's okay. It's easy to accidentally re-ask questions that have already been answered.

My brother has already been involved in war, even if he wasn't at the front lines. I can honestly say that I've already seen war and hate it and hope to never see it again. Of course, if you say that there's going to be another war, then I suppose there will be, which would mean that Brother's plans of stopping it are probably going to fail...but aside from that, no, we will never go to war for any country ever again, not for any reason. If we have to flee the country to get out of it, we will. We've already seen too much in our lifetimes, and won't join in such things. We may work to stop war, but we'll certainly not work to help it.

We haven't been in contact with Hughes for a long time, since we've been constantly on the move, but he was doing alright the last time we saw him. I hinted to Gracia just before we left what he was thinking, though I got chastised by my brother for interfering like that, but I think Gracia appreciated hearing. Hopefully things worked out between them. As to his first name, I'm not exactly sure. It sounded similar to Maes I guess, but it sounded a little different. It could just be a difference in accent or transliteration, but I could never pronounce it, so I only ever used his last name. Same with my brother.

**(This is a video message for Alphonse Elric. If it isn't, I'm going to KILL  
Firian... ) **

**-The screen flickers to life, on it is a video of a man in a black cloak-**

**Ah, so I see you got this message device working? Good. That menas you  
understood the instructions of the back of this video device! Great. Let me  
begin.**

**I actually took the trouble to hand-deliver this one. Because, I am a  
dimensional traveler. I can travel dimensions, while completely bypassing your  
'gate'. I don't use the gate to travel. I open a way to a place where I can  
go to each and every world.**

**And yes, I'm a bit of a talker.**

**Tell Ed that I can do many thiongs I want to do.**

**Where I come from, I am an emperor who rules thousands of planets. (A planet  
is basically a world, except you just need to go up to go to another one.)**

**And the technology is VERY advanced. So advanced, that we've created a tracking  
device that is the width of a hair. I came over one day and integrated it  
into Ed's hair. So now, with the right equipment, ANYONE can find Ed. And  
tell him, that the device is part of a random hair, and is VERY close to his  
scalp. So the only way to get it off of him, is to shave his head.**

**God, torturing Ed is fun.**

**Want proof? Look and see...**

**(Suddenly, the man steps aside to reveal a window, looking over a GRAND city,  
with building having hundreds of stories. Flying vehicles fill the city. And  
then someone walks in front of the window. He is in jet-black armor, with a  
mechanical device encasing his arm, and a device on his back.)**

**AH, firian, back from your moon mission? Did the rebels give you any  
problems?**

**Firian: Nope. THe lazers made short work of them. And the battle mechs were  
amazing.**

**Good. Wow, Firian, you haven't gotten on my nerves yet! Amazing...so,  
did anyone die?**

**Firian:Nope...well...Thramin's cat was shot through the head by a cannon  
ball...not pretty...even worse than the time we fought a battle against the  
poop flingers-**

**TOO MUCH INFORMATION!!**

**Firian:...**

**...anyways, tell Ed that unless he shaves his head, the device in his hair  
might 'accidentally' attract the authorities...**

**MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!**

**...Did I just do that!?!**

**...(beep), I still have about thirty seconds left...**

**...you know, I'll just go now.**

**(I pull out a device, press a red button on it, and a portal opens. I go  
through the portal...but first say...)**

**Chao! Next stop, your universe!! The sight of Ed getting his head shaved is  
just too fun to pass up...**

**With much torture in mind, the Omnipotent Emperor known as Nitro.**

...Um...Brother? Would you care to respond?

**Ed: You're just a bunch of ----ing idiots! What makes you think we're actually going to believe this ----? You ought to go-**

Wait, Brother, please, don't swear at my writers. It's rude.

**Ed: Fine, Al, but still, whoever wrote this was obviously just trying to see what they could get us to do, and see if we were gullible enough to believe them. They expect us to actually swallow this-sorry, and then do what they want us to do for laughs.**

Sorry, I shouldn't have shown this to Brother. It kind of irked him that someone would play an obvious practical joke on him just to get his reaction. I tried explaining it to him that by reacting, he was giving a reaction, but reason never works with him once his emotions take over. **Ed: I heard that! I mean...I read that!** Honestly, even if what you said about tracking my brother was true, I don't think that there would be much to worry about. The technology you claim to possess doesn't exist here, and the only people that matter are the ones that exist here and now. That is certainly not worth shaving one's head over, though I must admit that that creates a rather funny mental picture. **Ed: Oh, shut up, Al.**

**Ed: And don't insult me. Of course I know what a planet is. Do you think I never went to school?**

Sorry, ignore him.

**Dear Alphonse,**

**Oh boy. I'm sorry if it seems like I'm babbling, but I figured it was  
about high time someone sent you an actual letter instead of two lines that  
sound extremely fangirly at times. I guess I could think of you as a second  
penpal. I've already got one penpal in Germany, her name is Nina, and  
she's eight years old. Cute and yet strange at the same time, huh? I know  
she's definitely not Nina Tucker's double, but I was still surprised.**

**So to start off, I find it really cool and at the same time insanely  
maddening that you play the violin. You see, I'm a viola player, and if you  
did not know already, violas hate The Violins. It's not that we hate the  
violin players; in fact, I've got several good friends that play the violin.  
It's just that we hate The Violins, the proper noun. Especially when they  
steal all the solos with their fancy trills and high notes, leaving us violas  
with just half notes. You know how your brother gets whenever people call  
him…ahem…short? Yeah. That's what I get like if people ever say that  
violins are better than violas.**

**Because they aren't. Those stinking lousy solo stealers that think we're  
good for nothing except making them sound better, and their stupid high notes  
never sound half as good as the lower ones on violas, and yet who get all the  
solos? The Violins. rotten good-for-nothings… oops. I forgot that you're a  
violin player. Nothing against you personally. Blame the composers, I guess.**

**But I've been playing the viola ever since I was… hmm… about the same  
age as when Ed became a State Alchemist, I'd say. I'm not a prodigy like  
either of you, but I don't make people beg for mercy when I play either.  
Mostly I just play because it's fun. I like to figure out songs on it when I  
get bored. You know how one person wrote to you saying that there was a movie  
about you? I liked it so much that I figured out some of the music in that,  
just because I didn't have anything better to do.**

**But enough about me and my music. The whole point about this is to ask you  
questions, so I suppose I better ask you at least one question during this  
huh? I guess I'm taking advantage of a penpal that's actually old enough  
to read a long letter and offer suggestions or opinions if they want to. The  
sort of stuff Nina sends me is really simple, like, "Hallo! Ich heisse Nina.  
Meine leiblinksfarbe ist blau."**

**On a side note, Was ist deine lieblinksfarbe? Mein ist lila. Figured I might  
as well take at least a little advantage of having someone who speaks German,  
since my German teacher is not too pleased with my language skills at the  
moment. Let's just say that if she were Izumi, I would have been thrown on  
top of the Rhine river rocks a long time ago. Heh. I would write this whole  
letter in German if I could, but like I said, my German skills are…well,  
yeah. It would probably end up sounding like a six year old wrote it.**

**So on to more questions for you, this time in English. So the first one I  
know annoys most teenagers (I know it annoys me when people ask) but then  
again, you aren't really like most teenagers, are you? If half the teenage  
boys acted half as nice as you, school would be much more bearable. So the  
question is this: What do you want to be when you grow up? Or to put it more  
specifically to you, what would you like to do to earn money once you and Ed  
are done tracking down Huskeson? You don't really have jobs specifically for  
alchemists anymore, so there aren't as many jobs that really work with your  
passion. I guess that part of the reason I'm asking this is because I still  
have no clue what to do with the rest of my life once I get out of high  
school. I have no clue how to 1) figure out what my passion is to begin with,  
and 2) figure out how to obtain that. When did you and Ed know that you loved  
alchemy so much? Obviously you were very young, but did you just figure it out  
one day, or did you always kind of know? Sorry if that sounds kind of  
stupid…**

**And second, just out of plain curiosity, what kind of games did you and Ed  
play as children? Duck Duck Goose? Marco Polo? I'm always interested in your  
childhoods, since what little kids are interested in can really show a few  
interesting things about them. Like with me, my mom always got me stuff that  
had to do with the rainbow zebra (a children's tale in my world that teaches  
kids to show off their originality and has lots of fun colors and animals  
scattered throughout it) so now I always find anything rainbow really cool. I  
can't seem to help it.**

**I also find it really cool that you use writing as an outlet to relax, since  
I myself do that all the time. But I can also easily relate with Ed on the  
reading thing, since I do that all the time too. Usually when I'm not  
writing. I started reading a book this morning and finished it this afternoon,  
but I just remember feeling mad about it, since it means I won't have  
anything to do tomorrow while I wait for my seventh Harry Potter book to get  
delivered in the mail. (Don't even bother asking what that is. You'll  
probably just find it extremely strange.)**

**And my last thing to say is this: You're always telling Ed about how  
calcium deficiency can lead to short temper and stunted growth, but aren't  
you forgetting about the fact that it will also weaken his bones? The less  
milk he drinks, the higher his chances are of breaking a bone is. I also have  
that stomachache problem with drinking milk, but luckily for me it only  
happens in the morning. Then I drink loads of milk in the afternoon, not only  
to help strengthen my bones, but also because it tastes yummy! Besides, milk  
is the all-inspirational drink. Whenever I'm stuck on a story, a glass of  
milk usually helps those ideas get flowing. Usually. Sometimes it does  
nothing.**

**Sorry about me babbling on like this. But if I remember right, you did  
mention that it was unfair that all you had was this while Ed had tons of  
books and stuff. Something along that gist, I think.**

**Anyway, I totally understand if this overwhelms you and you don't end up  
replying to me. You've already answered a bunch of questions, and I know  
that mine is a pretty darn long letter. So I totally understand if you don't  
reply to this, but don't be surprised if I end up sending another one like  
this anyway. It certainly helps with the emotions stuff.**

**Sincerely,  
Petra**

**PS: Du schreibst sehr gut!**

You have no idea how much of a relief it is to see an actual, sensible letter come my way. You're the sort of person that I would readily accept as a penpal, actually, possibly even a close friend if I ever got to meet you. It's really nice that I got to read about your feelings for once and not simply be pried into to find out all of my little quirks. It's not that I mind having all those questions asked of me, but it's nice to communicate on a friend level for once. That's a rare priveledge. Thank you.

You know a young girl named Nina who lives in Germany? That's an odd coincidence. If I didn't know that she was from your time, I would seriously begin to wonder if she was Nina Tucker's double somehow. But then, Nina isn't all that uncommon of a name, nor are Alphonse and Edward, though they might be spelled differently in this country to get them to be pronounced the same way.

Heh, that probably is annoying to deal with these violin players that think that their instrument is better than yours. I don't think that any musical instrument is better than any other, but people naturally have preferences one way or the other. I tend to gravitate toward the violin, while my brother gravitates toward the guitar. We sometimes play together. It can sound really nice when we accompany each other right.

Another part of the reason why I chose the violin as my instrument is because it works so well when I want to play it as a fiddle. I like both classical and folk music, though it seems like my brother likes classical better, and I like folk better. It was really fun last time me and my brother decided to play a traditional Amestrian folk song on our respective instruments, and we were dancing around and singing in Amestrian. That got a little unnecessary attention from the people that overheard us though, so we had to come up with a quick cover story. They had been confused because they couldn't tell what language we were singing in, even though it was obviously similar to German.

I've been playing since I was very young, actually. Mom wanted us to pick an instrument to learn, and so we both chose something, and she got us a teacher. She was really impressed for some reason when I picked the violin. I think that our dad used to play it, but she never told us. There was a closet that she had never allowed us to open, and we never really bothered to open it even when she was gone, but I suspect that if we had, we would have found his violin in there, as well as a bunch of other things of his that she simply couldn't let go of.

I guess that such questions are to be expected of an eight year old, but that's cute. Meine Lieblingsfarbe ist purpurrot, obwohl ich blau und grün auch mag. Go ahead and ask me whatever you want, in German or not. I should be able to understand you either way, at least most of the time. There are occasional words I might not understand in either language, but I can usually just ask someone what they mean to find out. And of course, I don't care if your German is poor. Mine isn't much better, actually, but I do have the advantage of coming from Amestrian to German rather than from English to German. Amestrian is a lot closer than English, so it's not as hard to adapt to speaking German when Amestrian is your mother tongue. Of course, that makes learning English a real pain in the neck, but I'm slowly learning it. I used another cliche, are you proud of me?

What do we want to do with our lives once this whole mess is over? I still haven't quite decided, but I'd like to settle down to something artistic somehow. Perhaps as a painter or a writer, since alchemy is unfortunately not an option in this world, though I'll continue to study and see if I can find a way around that. I'm not the best person to ask on the matter if you're still trying to decide for yourself, since I'm not completely sure of my own life yet, but if you want my advice, what I'd say is to follow your heart. It will show you where you truly want to go. We found out about alchemy that way when we were children, though I don't remember exactly why we started exploring alchemy, we just did. I think, like you said, we always just knew, but our other interests took a little more work to figure out, so I can understand your point of view. Just experiment with a lot of different things and find out what you enjoy doing, and once you know, follow what your heart says and pursue it. That's the best advice I can offer.

As to what kinds of games we used to play as children, we actually spent most of our time reading books, though we did have our childish moments as any child would. Most of the games we played were some sort of roleplaying, like pretending that we were doctors or secret agents or state alchemists. ((Playing that we were state alchemists was a lot of fun, since we could actually transmute stuff while we were playing.)) Sometimes another friend from town would join in our game, and we'd be coerced into playing house with them. Brother usually ended up being the father, which I don't think he particularly enjoyed, since he insisted that he would only play father if Winry was the mother, but he didn't always get his way in such matters.

There actually was one time when Winry decided to play dress up with Brother, and somehow she talked me into helping. To this day, I don't know why I gave in, but it is a funny memory to look back on, just so long as I don't bring it up in front of Brother. We actually managed to get him into a dress, and he was furious! Poor Brother, always at the brunt of every joke.

And then there was the time when Brother was trying to teach Winry how to dance. She tripped over Den, fell down, and Brother fell down on top of her. He got so embarrassed by that ordeal that he vowed he'd never dance again, though I've caught him dancing plenty of times since then, just not very often with the opposite sex. He's still a bit shy around girls.

Yes, I find writing extremely relaxing. I also enjoy drawing when I can find something to draw with. Sometimes the only things around to draw with are soft rocks and large flat stones, but I don't complain. When there's a shortage of something, I feel blessed to be able to get anything, particularly since paper is pretty valuable to us right now. At least one doesn't require pen and paper to draw, though they do to write, so I save paper mostly for writing.

I've actually started writing stories recently, mostly based on our adventures, but sometimes I just let my imagination run wild. It feels even better than writing these letters, though I'm not sure that I'm actually a very good novelist, but it's fun. It entertains Brother at least when he runs out of things to read. I'm not sure if I should consider his response a compliment or not. He'd probably read anything nowadays, considering how bored he is when he's not worrying.

I've tried to explain that to Brother about the milk situation, but he won't listen. He says that he can get his calcium from the same place that the cow gets it, thank you very much, and that he doesn't need to stoop to the level of a calf just to get the nutrition he needs. Maybe he's right, I don't know. All I know is what I've been taught all my life, that milk is good for you, but it doesn't seem to agree with my brother. Or maybe he just doesn't agree with it. I'm not sure which it is, but there is some definite disagreement going on there. He does cook with milk though, so I don't worry too much about it. He ought to get all the nutrition he needs if he at least has it in his diet somewhere, even if he's not drinking it straight.

Anyway, thanks so much for writing this letter, and don't worry about babbling. I actually really enjoyed it. I wish that I got more sensible letters like this. Thank you.

Mai führen der Sonne Shine sein Gesicht unten nach Ihnen und Sie in alle Ihre Weisen.--An old Amestrian saying, translated into German.

**Hi Al! **

You talk about Ed in a lot of the answers. How sweet!

Anyway, sorry about the headache!

You know Armony? How exactly did you and Ed feel about her? Mostly you I  
don't know much about that side of the story. 

Well, I really care about my brother a lot. We're pretty close. I guess that it's just natural to talk about him so much. He would probably do the same thing if he were writing this. And don't worry about the headache, it's been long gone. Thank you though.

Hmmm...sorry, but I'm really not sure who you're talking about. I assume that this Armony is someone from the life of a parallel version of me and my brother, and not from our lives. Sorry, I don't know her. Thank you for asking though.

**Dear Al, **

I've been reading your responses for a while, and saw that one in particular  
was giving you trouble. The whole manga/anime thing seemed hard to describe,  
but I'll do my best!

Let's see, a manga is a book, okay? Like a chapter book, but instead of just  
having words, it has pictures describing a scene. If a character has dialogue,  
little bubbles are made that hold the speech, called 'speech-bubbles'. Go  
figure, huh? The thing that separates a manga from a normal comic book is that  
the book is read 'backwards' to what people are used to 'left to right'. So  
that's a manga. Hope that explained it. An anime is a moving-picture version  
of the manga, where the scenes are played out by voice actors. Kind of like  
Fritz Lang's movies, but as a cartoon. That help?

Well, anyways. Did you ever have a crush on someone in either world? No  
offense to Ed, but I think I like you better. Less likely to beat up someone  
for LITTLE, INSIGNIFICANT things. Oh, well, Ed, my kid sister still loves  
you.

Bye now! 

Well, trying to comprehend the whole manga/anime thing is mind-numbing and threatening to bring my long gone headache back, but okay, it makes a slight bit of sense explained that way. I don't quite understand why anyone would want to read a book backwards, but if they like it, then they like it I guess. I suppose that the people in the future found our story somehow and wrote it down and made a movie of it. That makes sense to me. Also that those in the future would know how to travel through time. You probably have technology that we couldn't even dream of.

And no, I haven't really ever had a crush on anyone, unless you count Winry, but both me and my brother had our childhood crushes on her, so I never counted that. I always wanted my brother to have her, so I kept my distance with my feelings. Sadly, it looks like neither one of us will have her now, unless we can find a way back, which I doubt. I have no idea whether I'll ever fall in love with someone in this world or not, but I hope I at least find someone to love before I die.

Also, I'm sure that you were trying to get my brother's reaction with the way you worded that last sentence. I asked him his thoughts on it and he said, "I could have you shot for that." Pretty rude, but at least he doesn't rant as much as he did when he was younger. He's gotten past that, though he's still sensitive about his height, so try not to tease him too much.

Anyway, my brother woke up and is bored already, so I'm going to quit writing for now and let him read over my work and probaby edit it too, since he seems to like to do that. In the meantime, send me some more letters, and I'll make sure to answer them as soon as I possibly can get another free moment. Thank you.

Alphonse Elric


	11. Chapter 11

Sorry everybody for taking a long time to respond to these letters again. My life has been really hectic as of late. As usual, we're in yet another house, hiding yet again. I suppose that one could call it an exciting life, but it isn't very fun. Brother's developing circles under his eyes. Maybe I should break my habit of talking to him when he's trying to get some sleep.

**Hello, Alphonse.**

**I've loved looking over your letters that you've responded to, and I thought  
I would go for one as well. Let's see here...First off, I'm just going to warn  
you that my own personality can be very much like Edward's, so sorry if I end  
up rambling or something. (No offense to the pipsqueak, of course!)**

**It's very interesting what you and Edward have been going through in Germany.  
I've been attempting to learn a little German, but all I've managed as of yet  
is learning Stille Nacht and saying 'no' hehe. German is a very hard language  
for me, English being my native tongue, but I feel sympathy for you because  
they say English is one of the hardest languages to learn. I admire your  
perseverance in learning two extra languages.**

**At our schools, we're required to learn a foreign language and to take two  
years of it at least. I'm taking four years of Spanish (Spain is a European  
country too, in case you've never heard of it) and that's hard enough  
sometimes! The accents in German leave me confused a lot, hehe. But still, I'm  
glad you were able to do it! How long did it take you and Ed to get used to  
English and German? Of course, Edward had a head start in German, so I imagine  
he helped you a bit.**

I must say that it's a good thing that I'm answering this letter and not Brother, because he would have already started ranting at you for insulting him by assuming that he didn't even know what Spain was. We've looked at maps of the world. We know what the names of all the major countries are and where they're located, and we know the names of many of their native languages, but not all of them. It doesn't take as long to learn these things as one might think.

Actually, Brother knows a bit of Spanish. He'll learn whatever language a book he wants to read is written in, as that occupies his boredom and gives him something to do. Learning another language is time-consuming, so he loves the challenge. I think he's learned about seven new ones since he got here. I'm still trying to juggle the two new ones that I've picked up.

As to how long, with Brother helping me, it only took me a few months to be able to speak both languages reasonably well. When one is put in an environment where their only choices are to either learn to communicate or die, one generally learns to communicate rather fast. Fortunately, learning a third language is usually easier than learning a second language, so English wasn't as hard to learn as one would think. It made it a lot easier.

So you know Stille Nacht? That's my favorite Christmas carol, by the way. Christmas was barely existant in my world. Christianity existed in that world at some point, but more or less died out long ago, so that time of year didn't have a Christmas celebration, though the winter solstice was still celebrated, especially in the agricultural areas. We didn't so much give gifts as you do here during that time of year, but we would get together for various festivities of singing and dancing and generally finding ways of showing our gratitude to the universe, or however you choose to word it. It was kind of a carryover from the earth-based religions in our world. Coming here and finding out about Christmas was rather interesting to us. Brother wasn't overly pleased about the highly religious aspect of it, but I liked the music regardless, and got attached to that song Stille Nacht, so now even he will sing it from time to time, simply because I like it.

**Also! Adding on something I forgot on my last comment...**

**Do you have any odd stories of things happening to you and Edward while you  
were learning English? Like misunderstandings with other people and such.  
English is my native tongue and I still misunderstand people sometimes hehe.  
Goes to show how much of an airhead I can be sometimes, I guess!!**

**Alison  
Soldier A**

There have been plenty of misunderstandings while I was learning English, but I couldn't tell you about them in great detail because I'm really not sure what I said, or what they interpreted my words to mean, but I certainly noticed their reactions. I once approached a man to ask him a question about English currency, and he just glared at me with a funny expression on his face and then walked away without a word. I have no idea what it was that I actually had said to him.

**Hey Al.**

**Thanks for answering my (fairly stupid)letter. And please tell Ed I'm sorry.  
I just wanted to see if he grew up at all since the Shamballa incident. by  
the way, the pun was NOT intended**

**Sorry if I made your headache worse...I was just curious. Um, okay. What was  
your first reaction to the story Rose told you, after Ed got your body back  
from the gate, but before the Shamballa thing? I think you might have had  
something like this before, but I wanted to know your feeling when they told  
you what happened in the four years you lost in the gate. Uh, that doesn't  
make a lot of sense, does it? Oh, sorry, it's just that my head hurts now, and  
I have a lot of algebra homework to finish. Well, I think I'll wrap this up by  
saying this is really nice, writing back to all of your adoring fans.**

**Auf weidersehen!**

Hmm, I have to agree with you, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but that's okay, I'll try to figure out what you meant regardless. Just don't catch my headaches. Those aren't supposed to be contagious, so I'm a little stingy when it comes to sharing them. Or rather, I just don't want other people to have to be in pain because they're pitying me. Now I'm not making sense. I think I caught something from you.

Anyway, yes, I do think I answered this question before. I was overwhelmed and confused. It was like there was a part of my mind that was just out of reach, and I couldn't seem to connect to it, no matter what I tried. It was sort of like those times when you have a thought "on the tip of your tongue" and just can't seem to say it, except it was worse. I wasn't able to rationalize backwards or forwards or anything else to get the memories to surface. They were simply blocked, and I couldn't access them, was kind of scared me.

The odd thing though is that some memories did surface, but only when I wasn't deliberately reaching for them. They would either hit me spontaneously, or I'd receive them in a dream. So, I knew that we had gone on a journey together, I knew that what Rose said was true, and I knew what Brother had looked like, which was why I'd tried to dress like him. It made me feel closer to him, especially since I couldn't retrieve the rest of my memories. The Gate must be a little bit sloppy about taking something away, either that or it likes to tease by giving back little pieces of the toll just to get you to try harder to get back the rest of it. Getting those memories back and being with Brother again was definitely worth the price of coming over here, though I still miss my old home and Winry from time to time.

**(Another Video Message for Alphonse Elric. If it is a letter instead of a  
video...I don't need to say it.)**

**(The screen flickers to life, and it shows a black cloaked man(me) looking  
across a space station. The planet below is a huge city.)**

**Hello again. It seems you never took my last message seriously. Well. Too  
bad.**

**(holds up remote control device)**

**If I am correct, that technologic device has, in Ed's sleep, administered a  
serum to Ed. Which, I might add, it would get a lot of time to do. It  
wouldn't have to go far to find a blood vessel either. Now, if I press this  
button, Ed will do an action of my bidding...I think I'll make him drink milk  
while wearing his shirt as pants, and his pants as a shirt, and with a hat  
glued to his buttocks.**

**(Presses button after pressing other buttons on the device.)**

**There, that should-**

**(A wall on the statione explodes, revealing powerful soldiers.)**

**Excuse me, I have to deal with some rebels.**

**(I go and beat the rebels to a bloody pulp using complicated moves using high  
technology beyond anything Ed and Al have ever seen.)**

**There. Now, where was I -**

**(Screen turns red, and big black letters show the words OUT OF MEMORY. ON  
the back of the video device, a slot opens, and a note pops out, saying..)**

**From, Nitro.**

Um, Brother does a lot of those things on his own when he's in a crazy mood and thinks that no one's looking, so how would I know that something was actually wrong with him? I suppose that if he drank milk I would question his sanity more than usual, but that's simply because I know that it gives him an upset stomach. Perhaps he would drink it if he wanted to throw up and then claim that he needed to be pampered because he was sick, but I've never seen him feign sickness to get attention before. Well, not since he was a child at least. I suppose that if he were to do something like that nowadays, he would probably be doing it because he was so depressed that he was trying to find a way to feel physical discomfort rather than have to pay attention to his mental discomfort, though removing his auto-mail and putting it back on would have a lot better effect. Either that or he could take some herb that would guarantee to make him throw up.

That kind of reminds me of that time that Teacher left us on that island. We were naive little kids, and didn't know what was good to eat and what wasn't, so when we saw these bright, shiny mushrooms, what would one expect of some hungry kids? Needless to say, we both threw it all up and were sick for a long time afterwards. Brother tried to lighten the mood by saying, "Do you think we'll get in trouble for leaving the island?" I was not in a laughing mood, and so I slapped him and groaned as I tried to wait it out. We survived, thankfully, but we both learned a very important lesson that one does not eat the pretty mushrooms by any means.

**Hi, Nii-san (that means brother in japanese)! Yea, I do think you'd make a  
cool big brother so I'm making you mine! I always do in my fanfics! Aren't I  
weird? FYI, I'm Meiko! That's my fake name on the web!  
Anyways, here are my questions:  
Do you think of yourself more superior than your brother sometimes,  
considering you're more mellow?**

**What did you do after searching for the bombs?**

**Did you ever like Psiren in Aquroya (agh, can't spell now, too lazy)? FYI,  
shes in episode 10.**

**Have you ever had a girlfriend?**

**And that's all, Nii-san! FYI, a dude is a guy. Byes, Nii-san! Luv you! XD**

Okay, that letter made barely any sense at all, so I'm just going to ignore the majority of it and skip to only what I did understand. No, I don't consider myself superior to my brother, I consider him to be superior to me, which is why I look up to him so much. I wouldn't do that if I considered myself superior. As to what we did after searching for the bomb, we did what we're doing now, running and hiding. That's what we began doing as soon as we ran out of leads. I thought Psiren was a nice person for the most part, but I never liked her in that way that I think you're implying. I have no idea what episode 10 is referring to, so I'll just pretend I didn't hear that. And no, I've never had a girlfriend.

Sorry for answering all that in one paragraph, but that letter really didn't make much sense to me. Remember that I'm in the early 20th century in this world, and wherever you're from, I don't have any idea what it is that you have grown up with, so you have to talk to me with early 20th century terms if you want me to understand.

Anyway, now I know a word in Japanese. I understood that much. Maybe I should try calling my brother that, and see how he reacts.

**Hi, Al!**

**I have this question in mind... If , let's say, you and your brother were in  
Amestris, and Ed dies from murder/illness/whatever, would you try to bring him  
back, eventhough you know the consequences?**

**And if it so happens that you will, what will you do about Ed's homunculus?**

**Just asking. I'm kinda obsessed with the idea.**

Um, no. We learned our lessons the first time, we would never make the same mistake again. Once one is dead, it's best if they are left dead and that the other moves on with their life. There is an existence after death, we just don't know what it is. We'll find out when we get there, and no sooner. I don't think it's polite to try and forcefully pull someone back from the realm of the dead. Even if it worked, that would be very jarring to their psyche. I wish I had thought that way last time, but one has to live and learn.

**Please excuse me if I sound like an idiot or if I ramble. And if I don't use  
the metric system. Okay, here we go:**

**My name is Angalee (ANN-juh-LEE). I'm a middle school student in America  
(yes, most of us are from America; that might explain why everyone suggests  
it. But really, that's what they teach us in history class, that America is  
the Land of Opportunity!)**

**I applaud your indifference. If I just randomly started getting anonymous  
letters about my personal life, I'd probably freak out. Though, I have to say  
that's a little weird, I hope you were exaggerating about going "Mail for me?  
Interesting."**

**It's a gift to know alchemy in this wonderful world of ours. I'd love to  
learn alchemy, even if I couldn't use it. Just for sake of knowing it. In the  
same way I'd love to learn German, though I certainly don't need to know it  
survive in America.**

**Just a little 'fortune telling' for you: assuming you live in 1920, about 90  
years from your time, our world still has no flying cars, time machines, and  
our automail is very, very primative. We can write without ink or paper,  
though, and our cars do go, on average, up to 120mph, I think. Why someone  
would want to drive so fast, I'll never know. In fact, the highest you can go,  
anywhere, is around 60mph.**

**No offense, but I hope you don't live to see the year 2000. It's gone downhill.  
Very downhill. Really, it'd be better if you croaked(that's slang for 'died')  
or got back to your world by then. I know Ed won't do either. (Haha, I'm the  
doom-and-gloom merchant).**

**Now for the actual questions, which I'm sure you've been dreading!**

**1. Some people think that you and Winry were made for each other, in  
everyway. Some draw pictures of you two (in varying degrees of innocence).  
Some write stories about you two (likewise). What's your opinion of that?**

**2. How does Ed hoard books? Can't you simply read the ones he's done with? Or  
does he, like, burn them when he's done?**

**3. I'm 11 (and a half) and my older sister's 17, we're about five years  
apart. We're both 5 feet three inches (that's 160cm). I find a sick joy in  
teasing her abuot her height(Unlike Ed, she never had and never will go on  
about how she isn't short). This sparked an argument, and I was hoping you  
would do the honors of settling it. I say that she's short, but she says I'm  
just freakishly tall. Who's right and who's wrong?**

**Hoping you don't get caught,  
Angalee**

**(P.S. I hope you find out how the letters get from us to you!)**

You write very well for an 11-year-old. Most 11-year-olds don't come across that smart, but it does happen. My brother is a case in point.

Eh heh, no, I wasn't actually exaggerating about finding it interesting that people were randomly sending me letters. I suppose that that makes me naive, but I don't care. It's better than being Mr. Depressed-all-the-time like my brother. If I make a mistake due to my naivete that causes trouble for me, that's no worse than my brother making a mistake due to his depression, and I saved all that energy by not being depressed! I figure that while in this world, one might as well live in it.

Alchemy can be used in this world, it's just implemented in a different way, and me and my brother still haven't figured out how to adapt. My brother is the one that said, "That didn't work. I'll try rocketry instead." But I never just try something once and give up like he did, which is actually rather out of character for him. I think that our dad told him that alchemy didn't work in this world to keep him from getting into further trouble, but I don't believe it. If this world is on the other side of the Gate, could it simply be that the polarity is reversed? Or maybe it's difficult to do it in a world where there isn't universal acceptance of the idea? Whatever the cause, it can be done here. It HAS been done here. There are plenty of accounts to prove it, which I have been researching whenever I can get a book away from Brother. He prefers to read about his rocketry anyway, since he definitely believes that that can be done in this world.

It sounds like the time you live in is interesting, but it also sounds like I wouldn't want to live in it. The aftereffects of the Great War are bad enough. I hope there haven't been any other major wars since then, though Brother thinks that there will probably be another big one, because of that bomb.

I don't deny that I've always liked Winry, but I think that she's more compatible with Brother than with me, and were we able to get back to Amestris, I would encourage the two of them to get together. I'll find my own girl someday.

It's not that he doesn't let me have his books when he's done. I sometimes do get to read the ones he's finished with, but we usually have to move again by the time he's finished with some that I can read, so I don't get to read as much as I'd like. There are always the hours when he's sleeping though, as long as I don't lose his place, or he would probably kill me.

Um, pardon my bluntness, but that argument doesn't sound very intelligent when you are both the exact same height. How can one be right and one be wrong when one calls the other short and the other calls the one tall, and yet they're both the same height? If it's fun to argue about it, go ahead and argue, but don't expect anyone to resolve it for you, because it is completely pointless.

**Oh thats okay. I forgot about the other you well there is more than one but  
yous sounds stupid. Anyway thank you for replying. I am close to my siblings  
too. Though they are much older than me and moved out when I was very young.**

**So Ed has grown up a lot huh? Did that take some getting used to?**

**One last thing! I am surprised that in your letters you came across another  
viola player! I play viola too but I don't play too well this is only my second  
year playing anyway so I need to get used to it. I'm doing better than last  
year though.**

**Say hi to Ed for me even though he doesn't know who I am.**

**I like Eds Add ins. Sorry Ed but encouraging is fun.**

I suppose it took a little time to get used to Brother having grown up, but I don't remember exactly how long. He does look like an adult now, rather than a child as I remember him best, but he still looks like Brother, regardless. I still look down on him though, either way. **Ed: I am so tempted to scratch out that unnecessary little comment.**

Heh, yet another viola player? Are stringed instruments popular in your time? I never met that many other violin players, either here or in the other world, but that could just be me. What exactly is the difference between a violin and a viola? Aren't violas smaller or something? Sorry, I've never bothered to study anything but my chosen instrument, so I'm not very knowledgeable about such things.

And I said hi to Brother for you. He said 'whatever'. I hope that that was the answer you were expecting from him. It's probably the best one he would give.

**Dear Alphonse  
Hajimemashite!  
I react the same way as Ed does to milk! It makes me nauseous if I drink it  
strait. Tell him that it helps to have it with food (unfortunately not always)  
Also, never freeze it! Ed doesn't have to answer and I know he most likely  
will not listen to the suggestion but it's worth a try.  
Forget about America! Come to Canada. It isn't always freezing like people  
say! Sometimes the summer can get up to 110/43.3. Seriously though. Stay  
wherever you are comfortable. "Comfortable" being a relative term  
considering your situation.  
Oh yea! My question! I nearly forgot. If you were to fall in love and get  
married then found a way home but she refused to leave and Ed would never  
leave you behind but you knew he would be miserable knowing it was that close.  
What would you do?  
And we are proud of you Al! You don't have to learn metaphors, etc, for  
that! You're smart and kind and have made it through so much. If I have kids  
I want them to be like you.  
You draw too! What do you draw? Have you ever drawn Edward? I've drawn the  
two of you before. Hm. That sounds creepy doesn't it? You're fun to draw  
though. I know what you look like from the manga and anime. As a note, mangas  
are written right to left because that is how they write in Japan. They are  
translated from Japanese to English but retain this quality.  
You don't have to respond if you are too swamped with letters already. You  
have to respond to enough craziness as it is.  
Sincerely, Illyalil  
PS: Don't tell your brother to shut up Ed. It isn't nice.**

Canada, huh? That had never even entered my mind, actually, though I honestly can't say why I would want to move to any other country. We wouldn't feel any more at home there than we would here, and we already speak the language fairly well here in Germany, though I'm assuming you speak English since you're writing to me in that language.

As far as who I would choose over who in that situation, I would have to wait until that situation actually happened to decide. There is no way I could plan ahead for a situation like that, and I hope it never does.

Well, thanks for thinking I'm smart. I'm not exactly sure that I am, since Brother is the genius of the family and I just make sure to always be nearby, so I probably end up looking smart too, even though he's the real smart one. I appreciate the compliment though. It's sweet of you.

Yes, I draw. As far as what, I'll draw just about anything I can think of. Naturally I have drawn my brother sometimes, or my mother, or all three of us, or whatever comes to mind. I enjoy drawing people a lot, or I'll draw something that expresses my emotions even if it doesn't make a lot of sense, though I try to bring some sort of stability into the drawing somehow. I much prefer people to look at it and say, "That's a really good drawing," rather than "What is that?"

**Ed: And of course it's nice to tell my brother to shut up. He loves it when I do that.**

**Al: Shut up, Brother.**

**Ed: Wait, what? Al, since when have you been responding to my comments?**

**Al: Since I decided to go back and check on what you've responded to and respond back before I sent this out.**

**Ed: This letter will probably take a long time to get sent out then.**

**Hi Al**

**You know when you were talking about visiting your brother in your sleep,  
that's called astral projection. When you do that you send your soul out of  
your body and it is kept connected by a thin thread. If you want to control  
it, maybe you should learn to meditate. That way you can use it better. Well,  
I should ask a question instead of babbling all day, sorry about that. Is  
there any other animal you like besides cats? I personaly like any animal in  
the feline family, such as tigers or bobcats. And if you're wondering, I am  
writing from America and from the future as well. Todays date for me is  
October 24, 2007. On a different note, when is your birthday Al? My birthday  
is January 26 and I'm not looking foreward to it because something bad always  
happens around my birthday. Last year was a bad ice storm that knocked out the  
power for a week. That's why this year I'm investing in a hard hat or some  
armor. You can't be too careful ya know. Anyway I got to go for now, so I'll  
talk to you later. Bye Al.**

So what I do at night has a name? Interesting. Thanks for the information. I'll see if I can find anything on astral projection.

I like just about any animal, but cats have always been my favorite. I'm an animal lover in general, unless the animal happens to be a chimera that is just about to rip you to pieces. I tend to draw the line there. (Hey, I got another saying there! I used it right, right?)

2007? That's a long time in the future. I wonder how your letters are getting back here. It's kind of spooky, but it entertains me too, so I don't worry about it too much, even if I logically should. I just figure that I don't understand nearly everything about existence, so if two times seem to overlap, I'll just shrug and accept it. Maybe I'll understand later.

Anyway, my birthday is September 29.

Be careful on your birthday. I would hate for something to happen. Take care, and stay safe, okay?

**Hey, how are ya?  
Okay, my name's Amanda.Sadly...  
Yeah, well I'm pretty damn sure you get a lot of questions about Ed, but I  
hope you don't mind me asking yet another one. How does he put up with being  
called a genius? Or to be grammatically correct, how DID he put up with  
it? People have called me a freaking genius for about eight years now and it PISSES  
ME OFF. Sheesh. I'm not smart. They're just stupid.  
And now, a question from my friend Leeta, who thinks you're the best thing  
since the invention of the wheel-when exactly is your birthday? We know Ed's  
(Feb 3) but no one ever mentioned yours...**

In answer to the first question, Brother has never really cared if someone called him a genius. It kind of gave him an ego boost, so he kind of enjoyed it actually. I have to sometimes tactfully bring him back down once he's been praised a lot by someone, because he sometimes gets careless while on one of his ego trips. **Ed: What the ---- is an ego trip, Al? Is it the kind of trip where you trip someone and they fall, or is it a trip like in, "I'm going to take an ego trip to Spain?"**

**Al: Brother, I really don't understand you anymore.**

Anyway, in answer to your second question, which oddly, someone already had asked this session (questions always seem to come in groups), my birthday is on September 29. September 29, 1900 in my world. Considering the time differential, I think that that would be 1906 here. You keep your calendar different from us, so it's off by a few years.

**Always read a book from the end to the beginning, the the ending is always  
happy! Tell Ed that the height thing is not just him...I have friends who are  
shorter than myself and yet they choose to mock my height. And that guitar is  
always needed, we keep the rhythm and we can play the melody! Look into Bach  
and Beethoven. To you, I commend your attempts at amusement. Reading is hard  
when there are no books, learning foreign languages is difficult, especially  
english considering one could keep learning until their death and still not  
learn all of the English words, plus, the more you play an instrument, the  
more creative you are and the more it alows you to learn more. This isn't full  
of questions, but why not chat?**

Yes, I certainly can chat, but I'm not exactly sure what to chat about. Something about the way you talk makes me want to tease you about something or other, but I'm not sure what I want to tease you about, nor am I sure how you'd take the teasing. I normally only tease my brother, and I'm sure you know how he takes it. (Not very well, but better than with other people teasing him.)

I suppose that I could always talk about things that the two of us have done for amusement, though Brother really doesn't want me talking about them, but I know he won't tear up the paper if I've already written them down, because paper is hard to come by.

There was this one time when, just because he was bored, he decided to see how many gummy bears he could stuff into his mouth and still sing a tune while playing his guitar. He did pretty well, he got up to 48 before he started to choke and had to spit them out. They were all disgusting after that too, because they had partially melted and stuck together in one disgusting, multi-colored stick ball. I'm still waiting for him to achieve 50. **Ed: I did achieve 50, you just weren't counting right!**

Then there was this other time when I discovered that I could get an immediate adrenaline rush by putting my hands behind my back and falling face forward onto my bed. Brother thinks this is stupid and refuses to try it, but I find it fun. He once caught me doing it over and over during the course of a few minutes, and he avoided me the rest of the day as a result. **Ed: I just wasn't sure if what he had was catching.**

And then of course, there was that time when we were both so strapped for cash that we dressed up as a couple girls and went out begging for money. He'll probably murder me for mentioning this, but it did work. We had to make sure to leave the neighborhood after that act though, just in case we got caught. I don't know about your time, but they don't take kindly to men who pretend to be women in our time. Hopefully we'll never do that again. I don't know why we did it in the first place, but we were in a very strange mood that day. Maybe it was in something we ate. I think that Brother at least had been drinking before that antic, but I'm not sure what my excuse was. Maybe I don't have one.** Ed: Al, I've told you a thousand times, I was drunk then, so I don't remember that, therefore, it didn't happen.**

**Dear Al,**

**I wanted to know if you ever tried to play a prank on Ed and also is he SHORT  
tempered hahahahahaha!**

Yes, I've played lots of pranks on him. We're brothers, aren't we? There was a time just recently where I rigged up a system while Brother was sleeping where I tied one end of a rope to Brother's ankle, and the other end to a bucket of water. As soon as he moved his ankle, his bed got very wet. What was even more cruel about that particular prank was that it was the middle of winter when I did it, so he was freezing afterwards and had to start a fire just to warm up. He didn't talk to me for the rest of the day, so I almost wonder if that prank was worth it, but it was certainly my most well thought out one.

There was another time when I had tried to bake a pie, but it didn't turn out to be edible, so I decided to put it to a good use in pranking my brother. I set it up on the front door so that it would fall on his head as soon as he stepped in the door. Before long, I heard something smack onto the floor, so I came running into the room to see the results of my prank, only to find out that my victim was not my brother, but Officer Hughes. I had not expected him to walk in without knocking. I think that he always remembers to knock before entering people's houses now. Plus Gracia has taught me how to make pie since then.

**Dear Alphonse,**

**Wow, never in my wildest dreams did I expect such a response! That was  
wonderful, Alphonse; I was smiling the whole way through. I would give you a  
hug, but considering that this is a letter and I can't talk to you  
physically… Sigh. Give yourself a hug from me, okay? That's my thanks for  
making my day so much better.**

**Yeah, today wasn't really the best of days until I got your letter. You  
see, I had to take this long test called a PSAT, which takes hours to finish.  
If I do well on it, I have the chance to go to a good college for less money,  
but if I don't do well on it, my chances of a good college accepting me go  
down. Luckily, I studied for it, and I think the hard work paid off just like  
when you and Ed took the written part of the State Alchemist exam. Fortunately  
I don't have the chance of a physical test coming up for college. That'd  
be mortifying!**

**So anyway, it made my day a whole lot better to see Alphonse Elric write that  
it was a rare privilege to get a letter like mine and that if pesky little  
thing called time didn't separate us, he would actually consider being my  
friend. So, Danke sehr schon Alphonse.**

**Ach, ich liebe Folk Musik auch! Classical is nice and all, but it's so much  
harder for me to play in that style. Our orchestra at school is putting on a  
concert tomorrow, and we have both a Vivaldi piece and a song called "Folk  
Dance." I love Folk Dance so much more than Vivaldi! (But the Vivaldi is  
pretty, don't get me wrong) Every time we play Folk Dance I want to put on a  
huge skirt and dance my heart out! It also reminds me of the song "Kelas"  
that Noa and her friends sang. Ed should remember it, but you weren't in  
Germany at that point. Ask Noa to sing it for you, it's very pretty. I would  
sing it right now, but once again… letter.**

**And Ed plays guitar? That was a rather interesting fact. I would have  
expected him to be more of a winds or percussion person. My friends and I were  
talking about this once. We had some trouble with Ed, but we decided instantly  
that Roy would play the trumpet. I think we actually guessed viola for you,  
but only because we were all viola players and didn't want you joining the  
ranks of violins. I think we ended up deciding that Ed would be best on  
trombone, though we did mention piccolo as a joke because it's the smallest  
instrument in the orchestra.**

**But it's cool that you two are close enough in skill to play with each  
other. My little brothers play clarinet and saxophone, but neither of them are  
quite up to the level where they could play a duet with me. I wish they could.  
That would be so fun.**

**My German is actually improving now. (Either that or I'm just getting more  
confident in my language skills) My German class at school was getting too  
small to be an actual class, so they combined us with kids a year higher than  
us. This also seems to have motivated our class into actually learning rather  
than goofing around. Did you ever have classes with combined grades as a kid?  
They're a pain in the neck sometimes, but I'm actually enjoying it at the  
same time. Und was ist purpurrot auf Englisch? Purple? Ich weisst das Wort  
nicht.**

**Actually, as an outsider looking in at your life, I've always kind of  
thought that you would be a wonderful elementary school teacher. If you're  
into the whole art thing though, you could certainly be an art teacher if you  
wanted. Of course, this is just my personal suggestion, you certainly don't  
have to follow it. I just always thought you had the right kind of patience  
and social skills needed to be a teacher, and you always seem to enjoy playing  
with kids. I'm actually considering being a teacher myself, either that or  
some kind of engineer, I think. Or an interior designer. (I'm not sure if  
there's really demand enough for this job to be invented in your time yet,  
but if it's not around yet, it's someone who gets paid to make the insides  
of building look artistic and nice)**

**But I realized that I was being really silly the whole time I was looking for  
my passion, when my passion was in front of my nose the whole time. In fact,  
I'm doing it right now! Yep, that's right, writing. I realized that all  
this time I was just ignoring it as a "hobby" when this is truly what I  
love to do. In fact, looking back at my life, I realize that I've always  
loved writing, it's just that some teachers made it seem less important to  
me when it really wasn't. A girl in a moving picture from my time (well, a  
little before my time, actually…) once said, "I should never go looking  
for my heart's desire outside my backyard again. Because if it wasn't  
there to begin with, then I never truly lost it." The phrasing may be a  
little off, but that's pretty much what she said.**

**Yeah, I also used to read a lot as a child. But my two younger brothers and I  
also used to do a lot of games where we would end up making this whole  
intricate story. We have this beautiful little… I'm not quite sure what to  
call it, so I'll just cal it a glen… by the side of our house. My  
grandparents actually built our house up from scratch and my grandma decided  
that it would be much prettier to have a fence of trees rather than a normal  
fence. So over by the side of the house there's a small group of trees that  
form a sort of clubhouse, and sometimes when it rains there's a small  
stream, making it an ideal place for fantasy games. My brothers have their own  
"weapons shop," which is really just a collection of sticks that look like  
swords and such, and we used pinecones as currency, since a large percentage  
of the trees around our house are evergreens.**

**I actually didn't play so many dress-up/house games, but I did like to play  
store. We would run around the house getting all the coolest toys and then  
setting them up to look like a store. Then one person would be the owner while  
the others went in and bought the toys they wanted.**

**Oh, and tell Ed that I said to stop making mountains out of molehills. I  
would suggest yoga or something like that to help calm him down, but I think I  
have an idea of how that would end up.**

**I was wondering if you had some sort of comforting line or something that you  
repeated to yourself all those years your were in armor. I've tried putting  
myself in your shoes and thought about how "We'll get the Philosopher's  
Stone someday," just doesn't seem to cut it, at least not for me. I would  
just like something comforting to be able to repeat to myself during stressful  
times so that I don't get too hyped up, like I usually do. Lately my life  
has been kind of stressful.**

**I suppose you wouldn't really know since you've never actually had a  
girlfriend, but breaking up with a boyfriend is really hard. I just started  
this relationship rather recently, but it moved really fast (not to the point  
where I had to reject him because of my abstinence promise, thank goodness)  
and I soon realized that I wasn't as ready for a relationship as I once  
thought. But now I'm left with the problem of how to end a relationship with  
a guy who seems to actually like me for who I am. I still haven't done it  
because I'm so worried about hurting him. He's going through a rough time  
and I really don't want to add to the pain, you know?**

**But to every cloud lies a silver lining, and because of all the stressful  
things going on in my life, I have fallen in love with flannel. It's so soft  
and wonderfully comforting! I seriously sleep in this stuff now. I can't  
believe I once thought it was geeky. Well, it may be a little geeky, but who  
cares when it's so soft?!**

**Anyway, wish me luck on my orchestra concert tomorrow, even if it really is  
years into the future for you. I'm actually the third chair in the  
orchestra. I bet I could do better if I actually practiced as much as I'm  
supposed to. I guess I'm too busy writing.**

**Oh, and the whole thing with "Please come to America?" True, those girls  
might not be able to meet you because of because of time barriers, but I bet  
they would kill to meet any distant relatives, or – heaven forbid – your  
grandson. Some of these girls really need to grow up.**

**Anyway, keep safe and healthy. Be careful not to get any nasty flu bugs while  
journeying around the country. You can never be too sure about what's in the  
air around you. Putzen deine hande taglich!**

**Sincerely,  
Petra**

Hi, Petra! It's nice to see you again. I've been looking forward to responding to you ever since I started responding to all the rest of these letters, which is precisely why your letter is last. I usually just arrange these in the order I receive them, but yours stands out, and I preferred to give it the best place, the one where I could focus all the attention I wanted on it without thinking about how many more letters I had to do after this.

I'm glad that I was able to make your day a little bit better. It makes me feel good to make someone else feel good, so Sie sind willkommen. Anytime.

Folk music is great. It's peppy, simple, and one can usually dance to it. Classical is nice too, but that's Brother preferred genre of music, not mine. He does get into it when I start playing some lively piece on my violin, though I don't know who wouldn't. I'm not saying that I'm that good of a violin player, I'm just referring to the fact that Folk music does that to a person. It's almost like it grabs your feet and forces them to move, so you just shrug and give in to it.

People don't always know what exactly would be brother's ideal instrument simply because they only know certain sides of his personality, basically the sides that he shows in public. When you're around him all the time though, you know how he can be in his more relaxed moments. He's a lot more mellow than one would guess judging by his public persona, so the guitar actually suits him rather well. I really love it when he plays it by picking at individual strings rather than strumming it. It makes that instrument so beautiful in my opinion. Of course, he has odd ideas of what entertainment is when he gets drunk, so don't ever ask him to play the guitar if he's been drinking too much, because he thinks that loud and obnoxious is funny.

That's good that your German is improving. That usually is because one becomes more confident in their language skills, and so they become more receptive to it, so it's probably a bit of both explanations, actually. And yes, I did have combined classes as a child. Me and my brother were in the same class back in Reisenburgh, but we weren't in the same grade. It was a one room schoolhouse. I was actually surprised to find later that there were some places big enough to have the grades separated. I don't honestly know which way is easier. I haven't experienced both ways, so I wouldn't know.

And in answer to your question, purpurrot is indeed purple. I like the color purple.

I've had other people tell me that I should be a teacher before as well. I guess that I just sound like a teacher when I talk. I suppose that that's not a bad thing, though I'm not sure if my patience would last all year with a bunch of rambunctious kids that don't want to listen from one day to the next. Even my patience runs out eventually. An older group might be okay though, as long as they're only coming to my class specifically to learn, and aren't being forced into it. And yes, interior designers are heard about in this time, but they're pretty much only employed by rich people. One can still make a living out of it though. Some rich people have a tendency to change their minds a lot and keep calling the same designer back to change things for them, though many of them are satisfied with the original design and never call the designer again. I don't know, I'll decide sooner or later I guess. I'm glad that you figured out that you like writing so much. That should make one thing easier for you when you are ready to start your career.

Those games you played as a child sound fun. Me and my brother played things like that from time to time, if we were imaginative enough to come up with something to do besides reading. Our games were usually fairly normal for that reason, or we would incorporate alchemy, which I suppose wasn't exactly normal, but it was fun for us. We always had little competitions as to who could make the best object, whatever the agreed upon object was. Brother always won.

The day that Brother stops making mountains out of molehills is the day that he stops being Ed, but I suppose he should learn to tone himself down somewhat, to use a figure of speech. Is yoga that eastern practice of exercise and meditation? I've come across the word from time to time, but haven't really bothered to find out the details of it. We both know a few martial arts and we spar occasionally, so I had kind of always figured that that was enough. It certainly gets his frustrations out and he always smiles after a good sparring match, even if he loses. He does try hard though. He's almost won a couple times since I got this body back, but I'm not about to let him actually win.

Hmmm...I didn't have a set line that I would say over and over while I was in the armor. I more had a thought that I would think over and over, which was something along the lines of, "My brother loves me, that is why I'm still alive, and that is why he's trying so hard to fix the problem." I didn't particularly care whether he actually succeeded or not, though I pretended to. What I really cared about what that he express his love to me in some way, and the fact that he was constantly trying to get my body back verified it for me. Of course, when that idiot suggested that Brother didn't really love me, I for some reason started to believe him because he had attacked me where it hurt most. That thought was the one that was keeping me from falling apart, so it was also my weakest point, and if one attacked me there, I couldn't handle anything. I'm actually amazed that I pulled through that at all, considering the painful doubts that had run through my head at the time, but there's no doubt about my brother's love now, so I don't have to worry about it.

I wish I could give you advice on your boyfriend problems, but I'm probably not the best person to ask, considering that I've never actually been involved in a relationship. I'm sure that you'll find a way to work it out somehow though. If not, feel free to ask your mother or your father, whoever is most available to you, as they have certainly been in a relationship before, or you wouldn't have been born! If that doesn't work, a church leader if you're religious, a teacher, or even a councellor if your school is big enough to have one might help too. My school wasn't big enough to have one, so I didn't get that advantage as a child, but my mother was always willing to answer my questions, so it was fine.

I took a long time to answer this, so I'm not sure if it will get back to you before your concert, but if not, I hope you did well. I'm sure you did though. You play an instrument similar to mine, so I'm sure you played well. I know that that doesn't actually guarantee success, but I guess I think I'm funny? Anyway, good luck on your writing too.

And yes, that might explain why those crazy girls want us to come to America. They simply want to make American citizens out of our bloodline. Are all the girls from your time this odd, or is it just them? You seem to be the only really sane one who has written to me out of all of them, particularly noting that one that sends the video messages, though they claim to be a guy...I'm not so sure.

Anyway! Thanks, we'll do our best to keep safe and healthy and not get sick. You do the same.

Putzen deine Hände täglich? Würde nicht zu blitzen sein angebrachter das tägliche Lächeln?

Thanks so much for writing, I enjoyed it. I hope to hear from you again soon. Thank you.

Take care,

Alphonse Elric


	12. Chapter 12

Okay, people, I'm back to answer some more of your letters, and I'm trying to do it within decent time this time rather than waiting forever to respond. I hope that this is good enough. Brother's pacing around upstairs at the moment which makes me a bit nervous as I don't have any idea what he's doing up there, but hopefully he'll leave me alone long enough to do this.

**Dear Alphonse Elric,**

**It's so nice of you to answer people's questions, and you've been very  
patient will all the silliness. I'm glad you like Germany and it reminds you  
a little of home. I visited there once and it was so beautiful. And they  
have a great train system! Or at least, they do now...not sure when it was  
built. You're very resilient, and I'm glad you're making the most of things  
the way they are, but I hope you find a way to go home some day. What types  
of books do you like to read, given the choice?**

**Sincerely,**

**M.**

Yes, I suppose that Germany's train system is fairly good. I haven't really had much opportunity to compare train systems between different countries, as I haven't really done much international traveling. Well, not before I came to this world, that is. I keep forgetting to count this world as an actual 'world' and not merely a 'place'. This world feels a lot like a dream that I'll wake up from any minute and find myself back in Amestris. Sometimes I wonder if I really will just wake up and find out that all these experiences the past few years have just been a bad dream. That would be nice, but I admit that I'm a little scared of how I would live afterward if it turned out that none of these experiences had been real. What would I make of reality if this wasn't real, all these things that my brother and myself have been experiencing together? Needless to say, I'm a bit confused as to what I want. I wish I could have the decision-making ability that Brother has. He rarely ever doubts himself.

My favorite books? I prefer the ones that are highly philosophical and delve into the mysteries of life and existence. I like to ponder questions that no one has successfully answered yet. Perhaps that's part of the reason I was so drawn to alchemy. In my world, it was accepted and labeled a science, but even scientists didn't claim to understand how it really worked, they only knew that it did work, so they accepted it. I've been noticing the same pattern in the scientists here, except that they haven't accepted alchemy yet. I hope they do soon. I know it works, but I'm not exactly sure how to work it in this world.

**Hi Al, hi Ed.**

**How are you? I hope you two are alright. You hadn't answered in a while,  
so...**

**Anyways, thanks for answering again! Boy, you must be getting tired of  
hearing from me. (Seeing as how the crap that I end up writing is getting  
through.)**

**Sorry about the last letter. Headaches usually make me feel all funny, and I  
end up babbling like a moron.**

**Listen, I hate to be a bother, but I've been asking people about this, and  
I've been getting a lot of different results. It's about a friend of mine. She  
gets bullied a lot at school by these better-than-you type of girls and it  
really irritates me that she won't do anything about it. I try not to worry,  
but it's pretty bad when you see a really good friend of yours reduced to  
tears by people who aren't worth anything. She won't let me do anything about  
it either. Normally, I try not to be so violent, but those girls are asking  
for it! Even some of the guys decided to mess with my friend, another friend  
of mine (who happens to be in crutches at the moment), and her boyfriend. The  
cowards even went as far as trying to knock over our friend in crutches.  
Teachers won't help us at all, and if we try and take matters in our own  
hands, the best thing we can hope for is getting sent to Juvie (juvenile  
detention center). What would you do in a situation like that? I'd really  
appreciate it if you could help me out.**

**Well, hope you guys are okay:)**

**Amaya**

Yes, sorry, I haven't answered in awhile. Even the difference between the first letter and this one took quite some time. Brother came downstairs a little while after I had started writing to find out what I was doing. He was apparently pacing around up there because he was bored, and so he came downstairs to find out if I could entertain him. Needless to say, once I put this project down, it took me a few weeks to get it started again. Sorry about that.

I'm not exactly sure how good my advice is, but I'm always willing to help if I can. I know that in similar situations, when someone is hurting a friend of mine, I tend to completely lose myself to my emotions if someone like my brother isn't around to control me, and even he doesn't always succeed. Obviously, that isn't the right way to behave in such situations, but it does illustrate that I understand how you feel.

The times when I actually get a positive result from such a situation are when I respond calmly yet firmly. As one friend put it, instead of fighting fire with fire, I fight fire with water, and it works better. Instead of showing your anger or shouting insults at the girls, you might want to try looking them squarely in the eye and saying something that calmly exposes who they really are, something that they can't retaliate against. One idea might be to say something like:

"I'm sensing fear from you. You're feeling inadequate with your own lives, and you're trying to bolster yourselves by attacking others. Why? What are you afraid of?"

Chances are good that they'll respond with some rude comment, but don't give in to it. They are starting to sense your strength, and that scares them, so they're trying to knock you from your foundation. Continue talking in the way you are talking, calm, firm, and almost sounding like you care about them. Oddly enough, they'll often turn and run off within a few minutes because they couldn't find anything to say in response to you.

I can't guarantee the results of this method, as it is different between people and circumstances, but if you do it right, you may find that these girls start leaving you and your friends alone. You might not ever get along with them, but if they leave you alone, then that's really all that matters. If they begin glaring at you from across the room, don't worry about that either. That means that they hold a certain respect for you, and they hate the fact that they do, because they don't want to respect you. If you can get to this point, you'll know that you have won the battle. If not, it's at least worth a try.

Anyway, I hope that the situation with your friend works out soon. I wish you the best of luck.

**AH! I am so sorry for the typo! I meant to say I'm starting to sound stupid.  
Something along the lines of that. I have no idea what I was even trying to  
say. Well anyway I don't really have much to say this time. Thank you for  
replying again.**

**Yeah the viola isn't actually that popular in my band class. That is why I was  
so surprised about you coming across another one. So strange. I know many  
people who play the violin.**

**Viola is smaller and has different notes. I'm not very good at explaining  
things, sorry.**

**It's okay about Ed. I actually thought he would say something like that so I  
will take that as a compliment.**

**Okay I guess I need to ask a question. Well I don't know if this has been  
asked before. If is has just don't answer it.**

**How much did you remember about Ed after you lost your memory? Did you  
remember anything at all?**

**Thank you!**

Hmm...well, I don't remember whether that question has actually been asked or not, but I know that I answered this question, at least in part, without being asked. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to expound upon it a little bit though, if I can remember. It seems like my time of amnesia was so long ago.

But first, in case you're confused, I remembered my brother after I had lost my memory quite clearly. The only years I had forgotten were the ones since that tragic day when we had tried to resurrect our mother. All the years before that were completely intact. That was why I knew how and where to study to look for him, because even though I didn't remember the details on what had separated us, I knew what had led up to it.

But, assuming you knew all that, and were really asking how much I remembered of those four years I had forgotten while I had forgotten them, I'll move on. I occasionally had flashes of memory where I would see him, fully dressed in red and black like he liked to wear during those years, and letting his hair grow out. That was the reason I had started dressing like he had, because in doing so, it helped me to feel a little bit closer to him...a little more connected. My memory flashes had still managed to bit a bit fuzzy, even so, so I hadn't realized that he had been wearing his hair in a braid. I only knew that he had grown his hair out and tied it back, and so I did the same thing in an attempt to imitate him. It brought a piece of him back to where I was.

Most of the rest of the things I remembered from that time period were not conscious memories, but more along the lines of feelings. I would know that something was the right thing to do in a particular circumstance, but I wouldn't know why. I quickly learned that following my hunches helped me succeed at getting what I wanted in life, so I kept doing what seemed illogical because I knew it would work out. That was what started me in my transmuting my own soul. It was just a hunch, but it turned out to be a correct one, and it worked well for me in the end to be able to do that. Most of the memories of that time period were conveyed in that way.

**True enough!  
(To the video person shakes fist and mumbles to self about harassing the  
brothers.) How do I know about that... Uhhm. I broke into your house? Haha,  
nah.. I'm happy today, a book I've been waiting for has finally come out.  
The last one in the series too!  
PS: You're too modest! Oh yes and I take back the comment about the cold.  
It may not always be but when it comes it comes and then some! Especially when  
you don't have any heating in your house. Sigh  
Sincerely Illyalil. I hope you and your brother have a lovely day! Thanks for  
replying to my letter!**

Hmmm...I'm coming up with an idea...Brother says that I should quit doing that. He says it's dangerous when I start thinking, though the same could be said for him.

Anyway, here's my idea. You claim that you broke into our house? That's a little bit disturbing, but that video person has been claiming the same thing, and seeing as how you obviously are against the video person's behavior, would you go and teach them a lesson for us? I'm sure that you can somehow sneak into their...hideout...whatever they have...if you are indeed sneaking into our house. Just please, as a favor to us, don't continue sneaking into our house...unless it's to save Brother from the video person.

Okay, now if you'll excuse me, I am going to go and lock myself in my room and laugh myself silly.

**Hi Al!**

**I understand... I'm just curious. I don't think there's anything wrong with  
being curious about something...**

**Have you wondered if we're alone in this universe? Just curious (once  
again)...**

**You're just like my cousin in some way... You even look like her, except your  
hair is brown and your eyes are grey... I've always wondered why...**

**I don't know what it is, but it seems that everyone around me seems to enjoy  
teasing me, even those that I don't personally know. For example, my  
substitute teacher for Trigonometry (oh man, did I spell that right??) started  
to call me 'Auntie Em' (my name is Emily and he was basically doing a parody  
off of a musical made in the 1950s) and started to harass me about other  
things until the point where I was harassing him back. It was very  
educational. But, I was just wondering if you were having a pleasant holiday  
season. No one ever seems to ask you that. Plus, have ever ridden in a car with  
Edward? Or have you attempted driving yourself?**

There's nothing wrong with being curious. I'm curious myself about a lot of things. I do know that we're not alone in the universe though. Well, I admit that I haven't explored beyond this planet, but you know very well that I'm from this planet in another world. If other universes have intelligent life on them, who's to say that other planets don't?

Heh, people that get teased a lot are usually people who react in an amusing way to being teased, either in the way that they lash out in a ridiculous way (like my brother) or in the way that they tease back, like it sounds like you do. People enjoy teasing other people. It seems to be part of the human condition. I wouldn't worry too much about being teased unless the teasers are going too far and actually saying hurtful things. If they are doing so, then I would recommend that you calmly approach them and tell them what they did to offend you, and politely ask that they stop. That usually gets results. If they're not doing that though, then just have fun with the teasing and tease back. Everyone needs to joke about something, but there is no law that says the teasee can't be the teaser as well.

Yes, we had a decent holiday season. It was different, to say the least. We didn't have Christmas as this world perceives it back in our world. We celebrated the winter solstice instead, which incorporates all sorts of legends and rituals involving the spirits of nature. Most Amestrians don't treat nature with such respect as our ancestors did, but we've kept the holiday traditions alive all the same. I wonder how our country would have turned out differently if the belief structures would have been kept as well.

No, I've never attempted driving myself. I don't look old enough for anyone to let me behind the wheel of a car, and I don't know how to explain to them that I really am old enough, so I just let them assume that I am several years younger than I really am. It's easier that way. But yes, I have ridden in a car with my brother. He drives well unless he gets distracted...which unfortunately, happens a lot. He nearly crashed the other day when a rabbit jumped in front of the car unexpectedly. I don't think that that person is going to let him drive their car again anytime soon. Cars aren't cheap.

**(Another video)**

**Hello, this is Nitro coming to you from...wherever you are staying right**

**now.**

**I am indeed in front of the current place Ed and Al are staying at. The**

**video clearly shows the house.**

**Now, I will torture Ed by pressing this button. It should get Ed's flesh arm**

**to slap himself over and over again for 48 hours, thanks to the serum the**

**tracking device injected into Ed earlier.**

**Nitro presses a button on a remote, and suddenly...**

**SLAP**

**Ed's vioce form within the house: What the-**

**SLAP**

**Now, I leave you to your torture...**

**SLAP**

**Nitro comes up the camera, reaches for it...**

**SLAP**

**(The video ends, and displays the following words:**

**From, Nitro)**

Hmmm...we get another message from the idiot. I hope you all will forgive me for sounding rude or out of character, but I believe it's justified when someone truly IS being that way.

Brother does stupid things sometimes, slapping himself included. Though as for slapping himself for 48 hours straight...well, sadly, there is a logical explanation, though I'm not proud of it. We're living in a really bad house right now, and there are fleas. It's only natural that he would be slapping himself. I've been doing that too, and scratching myself and trying to pinch the things dead with my fingernails since they're so flat that you can't just step on them. I hate it, and so does Brother. Neither one of us is used to such living conditions, so naturally we'd be slapping ourselves relentlessly for a few days, if not longer. I hope that we can move to another house soon, but you take whatever you can get when you're being pursued. I don't like being reminded of my terrible living conditions at times though, so please don't mention it again.

**Al,**

**You may have had this question before, but after going through Germany, where**

**are you guys going to go next? Our world on this side of the gate is quite**

**diverse. Each hamlet, country & region has different customs & things to see.**

**So where? My older sister & I want to know.**

**Kiarra-Chan**

In all honesty, we don't know where we're going next. We never do, from one day to the other. We flee whenever we have to, and we go wherever there's an opening. There isn't much room to plan ahead when you're living this kind of life. We've been spending most of our time in Munich because it's hard to leave, but we've gone to other places before when the opportunity arose. It just depends on what happens.

**Dear Alphonse,**

**Oh, it's so good to hear from you again! I was starting to get worried that  
perhaps something had happened to you! Though of course that's silly since  
I'm years ahead of you and if you did die, well, there'd be nothing I  
could do about it. No time machines here yet, sadly. Though you would know if  
time machines were invented because you would be attacked by a mob of girls.**

**Oh, there's so much to respond to, I'm not sure where to begin. I  
remember noticing that you mentioned that you weren't quite sure of what a  
viola is. The horror! Allow me to explain… You play violin, so you already  
know that violins have a G, D, A and E string, right? And cellos have a C, G,  
D and A string. Violas are a little bigger than a violin when it come to size,  
but have a C, G, D and A string like a cello, leading to the mellower, deeper  
tone that I love. Put simply, violas are what would happen if a violin and a  
cello got married and had a baby. And no, string instruments aren't  
extremely popular in this time, though as far as I know, they are on the rise.  
Most people I know are in band or choir, though.**

**Also, while I was reading, I had a theory as to why you're getting letters  
from my time. Ready? So I've read books about the same sort of thing  
happening to other people. Of course, most people dismiss those books, saying  
that they're just fiction. But then again, in my world you're also 'just  
fiction,' so I'm guessing that there's at least a grain of truth to  
them. So the thought with most of those stories is that somehow time is being  
thrown off, whether it's by some object, or something like earthquakes. What  
I would do is watch your surroundings carefully for the next few weeks. My  
currents thoughts are that you might be carrying something that ties you to  
this time, something strange is happening to connect you to this time or, the  
one I think makes the most sense, you're throwing off time because you're from  
another world where time runs differently. Mull it over for a while and come  
back to me on it. Maybe try talking to Ed about it, if you get the chance.**

**Anyway, onto lighter topics, such as replying to all you said. Happy day! My  
letter stands out; I feel so special. Is it because of the proper grammar, or  
perhaps because these letters are usually over a page long? Hah ha.**

**I can see now how Ed is perfectly suited to play the guitar, now that  
you've pointed it out to me. Of course after being so energetic in public,  
it would definitely be nice to be able to play a mellow instrument to relax.  
One time I found an old guitar and tried playing it just for kicks. (There's  
a common phrase, do you recognize it?) It has a nice sound, definitely, but  
it's much too bulky for me.**

**Yeah, I've definitely become more confident in my German. My dad took it  
when he was in school, and I've actually talked to him a few times now in  
complete German sentences, which has led to glares from my brothers, quickly  
followed by laughter when my dad says the German word for "tank."**

**I love purple too, in fact, it's my favorite color. What a coincidence,  
heh? I never thought I would run into a guy who would willingly admit his  
favorite color is purple.**

**I've really gotten into writing since I last wrote to you. Then I had just  
realized it was my passion, now I've known it for a good while. I've  
started writing my own book, which is at about twenty pages so far, and I've  
only written chapter one and the prologue. I also took a leaf out of the Elric  
book and decided to boldly plunge ahead and do things that other people might  
be scared to do, i.e., I started a writing club at my school. So now I'm the  
president of said writing club, and learning just how hard it is to have  
everybody looking to you for guidance.**

**Adding alchemy into your games isn't so weird, at least not for my family.  
We added math into our games, and would race to see who could do math problems  
the quickest. To this day we still do stuff like that. My dad once taught me  
how to do a proof that 'proves' that one equals two. And Chemistry was so  
fun last year! (At least, when we weren't doing tests or homework…) We did  
a lab called "The Alchemist's Dream" once, where we made a penny into  
gold. Okay, so it wasn't real gold, but we were transmuting one substance  
into another, no transmutation circles necessary.**

**Oh sorry, I forgot that you might not know about yoga. You've pretty much  
got the basic idea of it down, at least enough to get my drift. (There's  
another saying for you.)**

**Sparring certainly is a good way to vent. I used to do it with my friend  
before gym class. She always beat me though. I've never had any self-defense  
classes in my life, and she's slightly taller than me on top of that. I've  
been taller than most all of the kids throughout all of school, and then she  
comes along and is taller than me. In fact, a good number of other girls are  
taller than me nowadays. I think I'm either shrinking or my growth spurt  
stopped. It's not fair.**

**That's a really nice thing to think. It's always nice to know that at  
least one person in the world loves you that much. I know that both my  
brothers and my parents love me very much, but that currently isn't the  
center of my stress, so I had to come up with something else to comfort  
myself. It's usually something along the lines of "High School doesn't  
last forever," or "They only seem like idiots because I am smart."  
Sometimes it's hard to be nice to people when you wonder how you can be from  
the same species, so those thoughts usually help me not act like a jerk just  
because nothing seems to be working for me. And also the thought that if I  
approach a good day with a frown, it will seem like a bad day, but even a  
horrible day approached with a smile can seem like a good day.**

**A counselor? Well, I actually managed to work this out on my own. We parted  
peacefully and are still friends now, and he has a new girlfriend. And even if  
you were the one who suggested I go see a counselor, I probably still  
wouldn't have done it. I hate the thought of going to some complete stranger  
and baring my soul to them. I don't really trust my teachers enough to talk  
to them like that, and while I am religious, I haven't gone to the youth  
group for months because I've been so busy. I did talk to my best friend  
about it though, and she gave me the courage to go face my boyfriend at school  
the next day, as well as a shoulder to cry on if I needed it. She's like my  
big sister, only we're not really related.**

**Our concert did go pretty well, thanks. We're actually having our winter  
concert tomorrow night. That's how long it took you to reply! We're  
playing The Nutcracker Suite, which I love. Of course it's not the entire  
Suite because that would be insanely long, it's just three of the songs. I  
love the Russian Dance (Trepak).**

**Well, some girls are crazy in this time, though thankfully not all of them.  
But I think that part of the reason it's easier for me to make sense to you  
is the fact that some people say I'm a little "old fashioned," since I  
don't do a lot of the things that are considered "normal" now and would  
sound like complete gibberish to you. And the fact that I don't swear and  
would like a boy to do simple things with me before we start dating, such as,  
oh, maybe TALK like civilized people!**

**I suggest changing your last name if you plan to live until my time, since  
some girls will run after you even if you are both old men. And maybe get a  
good security system while you're at it. And some German Shepherds.**

**Ugh, too late. I already got sick once while I was waiting for your reply. I  
have a weak immune system. But luckily for me, getting sick can be no big  
deal. The problem with you two is that getting sick could put you in serious  
danger.**

**I've also been a little curious about the idea of parallel worlds recently.  
Considering that you probably know a good deal about the subject, could you  
please explain it to me a bit? I totally understand if it's too complicated  
to put into words, though.**

**So first of all, I can understand if the two parallel worlds started with  
alters that looked almost exactly alike, but I don't understand how it  
continued to stay that way what with genetics. Wouldn't the couples have to  
be the same in order to even have a chance of having children that look  
exactly the same to their counterparts in other worlds? So your mother and  
father's doubles would have to have been together in order to have your  
doubles exist. But I'm pretty sure that's not the case, because I got the  
impression that yours and Ed's doubles weren't actually brothers.**

**And secondly, even if the same people ended up together, considering the  
probability concerned with genetics, (you know genetics reasonably well,  
right? The traits of a mother and father getting passed on to their kids and  
the chances of what the kid will end up with?) the chances of getting two  
children that look exactly the same in two different worlds is really high.  
Does this have to do with the parallel worlds theory? I'm afraid I don't  
really know much about it, but I got the impression that it was proposing the  
theory that two separate and yet strangely similar worlds could have some sort  
of link between them. There wasn't bunches more to it, was there? You guys  
were always alchemy geeks, and I've always been strangely attracted to  
genetics.**

**I have no idea what season it is in your time, but in this time we're  
creeping up on Christmas. My family has already put up our nativity, and  
hopefully we'll put up the tree soon. And part of what I love about  
Christmas is that my German class goes down on a field trip to this place  
where they sell authentic German food and crafts. One year there was  
glass-blowing there, which was absolutely gorgeous. And we also sing German  
Christmas songs. I saw that your favorite song is Stille Nacht. That's one  
of the songs I certainly enjoy singing, but I think that my favorite Christmas  
song is O Come, All Ye faithful.**

**I wish I could actually send you more than just a letter, but it doesn't  
seem to work. I know what I would want to give you if you were here, now. I  
got this beautiful wood carving of a cat that is about the real size of a  
young cat. The artist was really good at carving too. The cat is staring up at  
something above his head, and he looks like he's could come to life and  
pounce when you look at him. Not as good as a real cat, I know, but it's a  
wonderful carving.**

**Anyway, since I can't send you the cat and I want to give you and Ed both  
something for Christmas, I decided to write a little something. And since  
I'm not sure when you'll reply to me, I'm sending it to you now so that  
I know you'll have it for Christmas. So a very merry early Christmas to both  
of you. (I know Ed will read over this eventually) Your present first Al,  
since you are the one actually writing letters to me.**

**A is the first letter of the alphabet, the one that always ends up leading  
the way. You lead the way too, setting a good example for those who follow in  
your wake. Sometimes it can be very stressful to know that others may be  
mimicking your own actions, but you continue to lead the way, humbling others  
who watch your tale unfold**

**L is the first letter of the word love, in both the English and German  
languages. And you do show love to almost everyone around you. It's rare to  
find someone with a heart as big as yours, so treasure it and take good care  
of it. Some people will return your love, others won't, but either way,  
it's still a wonderful thing to have and give.**

**P is the first letter of the word Prince. You have come across good fortune  
during your life and better off than a lot of people your age. But P is also  
the first letter of pauper, and you have also certainly seen your fair share  
of hardship. Of course, knowing about hardship makes you an even better  
prince.**

**H is the first letter of honorable. Just like the Knights of the Round Table,  
you are a very honorable person that makes sure to keep to your set of morals.  
These morals are part of what makes you the hero rather than the average guy  
on the street and what makes others admire your choices.**

**O is the first letter of owl. Most people think of how the owl stays up  
through the night when they hear the word, and while this was true of you at  
one point in your life, there is another important characteristic that people  
also associate with the owl, and that's wisdom.**

**N is the first letter of novelty. You have the rare gift of being able to  
take something old and turn it into a novelty that people enjoy doing. Just  
something as simple as your presence can turn an old activity into something  
completely new.**

**S is the first letter of scratches, which you've managed to collect a few  
of through your life. But the good thing about scratches is that while they  
may hurt for a while, they do heal and then we can learn from them. And  
you've managed to turn the bad experiences of your past into valuable life  
lessons that you can pass on to others.**

**E is the first letter of enthusiasm, which you seem to be filled to the brim  
with. You manage to keep looking at life through bright, eager eyes even when  
it keeps slapping you in the face. You also get excited over future plans,  
which can make even the grumpiest people around you happy.**

**Put them all together and they make you. A-L-P-H-O-N-S-E.**

**Sorry if that was a kind of weird Christmas present, but it was the best  
thing I could come up with, next to poetry, and I'm afraid I'm not really  
in a poetry-writing mood at the moment.**

**So the next present is for Ed, who I don't want to leave out. I actually  
wrote this a couple of weeks ago when I was trying to put myself in Ed's  
shoes. Then I later went back to it and changed the words a little, but not  
too much in the end since it also applied to parts of my life. I figured Ed  
might like this because it was originally based off what I would consider  
along his thought-line at times. Sorry it's a little bit of a depressing  
Christmas present, or whatever adjective you want to apply with it.**

**One Wing**

**You may say I'm broken,  
And I wouldn't disagree.  
I am shattered,  
I have had it,  
There is nothing left in me.**

**And yet I still continue,  
And yet I still keep up,  
One foot after the other,  
But I'm barely hanging on.**

**Is one wing ever enough?  
How can I still survive?  
I just keep moving forward,  
And never, never, never  
Look back.**

**My life has fallen to pieces.  
What happened to things I once knew?  
Nothing is what it seems anymore  
Illusion is reality**

**Is one wing ever enough?  
Can I still fly south?  
I'm looking for warmer weather,  
But all I find is  
Snow.**

**I'm in pain  
I can't go on  
I want to sleep  
And never, never, never  
Wake up.**

**One wing  
I've only got one wing  
The other is gone forever,  
Lost many years ago.**

**I remember the sky,  
I remember the clouds  
It seems oh so long ago  
That I soared with the birds**

**One wing  
I've only got one wing  
The other is gone forever,  
Lost many years ago.**

**There is no going back  
I'll never be the same  
I'm not the kid you once knew**

**I'm lost  
Where are you?  
No one can find me  
And I'll never, never, never  
Get out.**

**One wing  
I've only got one wing  
The other is gone forever,  
Lost many years ago.**

**You may say I only continue for you,  
And I wouldn't disagree.  
You are pure,  
You are kind,  
You do not compare to me.**

**One wing**

**One wing  
One wing is beautiful in your eyes.  
I doubt I'll ever see it like you,  
But I trust in what you say.**

**So I'll keep going forward,  
I'll face each day with a smile  
It's exactly what you would do**

**I won't lose myself to the  
Snow.**

**I hope you two have a great (or as great as you can get) Christmas if it's  
coming up soon, and if it's not, then just consider this very early  
Christmas greetings. Or when you think about it, technically very late,  
considering that it's 2007 here. I wrote a really long letter this time  
around, but that was partly because of the Christmas presents. Oh well, more  
reading material for you, Alphonse!**

**Sincerely,  
Petra**

Hello again, Petra. Yes, indeed, you wrote a very long letter this time, but it was quite an enjoyable read. Now I just have to respond, which will probably take awhile, but at least it gives me something to do. As always, I put this one off until the very end, saving the best for last. I even took a break from the last letter I responded to in order to clear my head before responding to yours, so I'm writing in the middle of the night. If you've never written anything by candlelight, you should try it at least once just for the sake of doing so. It's rather a magical experience. Even go so far as to read something you've written aloud, particularly poetry. There is something powerful about reading poetry by candlelight that I can't explain unless you've actually done it.

I appreciate you worrying for me, though it's rather unfounded, since we live in different times. They appear to be parallel though, since I received your letter before Christmas of last year. It's the new year now. You said that it was 2007 where you were. Is it 2008 now? If it is, then I'll know that our times are indeed parallel to each other and running at the same speed.

You had quite an interesting theory about my receiving these letters though. Connected to your time somehow, hmmm...there are so many crazy ideas as to why that might be the case, but none that sound perfectly logical, so I suppose that it must be one of the crazy theories that is the real one. I can't think of any object I possess that might connect me to your time, unless you count Brother's auto-mail, which hasn't been invented in this world yet. That would connect him though, not me. As for unusual circumstances that might connect me...the only thing I can think of would be Nazis running around, but that doesn't seem to be the sort of thing that would connect someone to some other time. The theory about the connection resulting from my being from another world is plausible, though I don't see why that would throw off my time reference, since the times between the worlds are parallel, but you never know. The Gate sent Brother to a non-parallel time the first time he came here. Another bizarre thought worth considering is the fact that a lot of the eastern religions in this world seem to believe in reincarnation. It sounds a little bit crazy, but since all of these thoughts are, I should consider it too. If I reincarnated in your time, I suppose that that could establish a connection to my time, though I don't know how that would cause the letters to show up.

Anyway, leave it to say that it's a mystery and probably never will be solved, but that won't stop me from asking questions and trying to find answers. The greatest joy I get out of life is trying to find answers to questions that really don't have them.

So that's the difference between a violin and a viola. Thanks, I had always wondered that, but had never bothered to actually find out for myself what the difference was. My mom just had me and Brother each pick an instrument that we wanted to learn to play, and then she got us a teacher. I had never even heard about the viola at that time, and since the only stringed instrument I could think of when I was little was the violin, that was what I asked for. That's pretty much why I play that one rather than any other kind of stringed instrument. I was just too young to realize that there were other choices, though I'm not sure whether I would have chosen differently had I realized. I really do like the sound of the violin, though I'm sure that I would like the sound of the viola too. If I manage to live until your time by some miracle, you'll have to show me somehow.

So you haven't invented time machines yet. That's too bad. One of those things could come in quite useful. Oh well, I'm already used to a completely linear existence, so I'll be fine. Well, a linear existence plus a few Gate experiences and regressing in age four years. I guess that that's not completely linear, but it's closer to that than actual time travel. I wouldn't know if time travel had never been invented though. If it had been invented in your time, I assume that we probably would be assaulted by all these crazy girls that keep writing me, but if it came from a time in your future, maybe nobody remembers us anymore.

Maybe people are traveling through time as we speak, and none of us are aware of it. Have you ever wondered if time is truly linear as it appears or if it really occurs all at once? If it does, then time travel is absolutely possible, but no one has discovered how to leave the linear and jump to another point in the time-space continuum. I know that one can certainly bend the rules of time when traveling through the Gate. Brother proved that, albeit accidentally. Maybe in the future, someone will discover how to do it deliberately, but hopefully without the use of the Gate.

I'm glad to hear that you're getting better at your German. Everyone should learn, or at least try to learn, a second language. You never know when that knowledge will be useful. And yes, I know how pronouncing foreign words can be quite humorous. When I first came here and tried pronouncing the words in the German language, my accent got in the way a lot and Brother had to correct me constantly...when he wasn't laughing. I still have my Amestrian accent, I'm sure, but people understand what I'm saying now, which is the most important thing.

So your favorite color is purple too? That's nice to hear. Brother thinks that that's funny, since purple is a color that men rarely wear, at least in this society or in the one we came from. I reminded him that it doesn't matter whether a person wears the color or not, I just happen to like it. German people dress in very bland, boring colors anyway, so I might as well like something with a little more depth to it. Brother's favorite color is blue by the way, if you were wondering. He never wears the color himself, but he enjoys it. I never catch him in anything other than browns and blacks, except for that red coat which he used to wear. I don't think he ever gave himself permission to dress in the kinds of clothes that would elicit pleasant feelings from him.

I'm glad that you got into your writing. It's good to see when I can motivate someone to follow their heart's desire. It makes me feel warm inside, somehow. I think that Brother enjoys doing that too, but he tries so hard not to show it. He's afraid of his sensitive side, I think.

That sounds like a fun class that you had. I figured that they wouldn't really be teaching you how to turn things into gold in school. If they did, then I guess I'd have to say that I don't know this world as well as I thought I did. They had similar classes back in my world too. The energy manipulation part of alchemy that played a large role in my world was rarely ever taught in classrooms, since that required a lot more discipline than most people realize. They basically only taught chemistry from an alchemical standpoint. We didn't develop physics as much as your world did, but we certainly know a lot about chemistry and alchemy. I miss our chemistry classes in school. That was the only subject I enjoyed back then, actually.

I'm going to skip a few paragraphs since we've worn out a few of those subjects, and these letters will just get boring if we keep talking about things if we don't have anything to say in response. Not that your letter wasn't interesting, it was. My response might not be though if I respond to topics where I've already said all I have to say on the subject, heh. So, to move on to the next topic I've got something to say about...

Parallel universes. I could probably spend several pages on this topic, but I'll spare you and do no such thing. You brought up an interesting point though. I know how genetics theoretically is supposed to work, but like you said, a lot of our doubles really didn't come from the same families that we did, which would make anyone question the concept of genetics. I'm starting to wonder if genetics plays as big a part in the creation of a person as is normally thought.

What I'm starting to think is that it's the person's soul, more than the person's body, that gives them their distinct appearance, and that soul could have been born into any family. That soul also comes with a name attached, which may or may not correspond to their doubles, but that name is impressed into the minds of the parents, and they name the child accordingly. Yes, that sounds quite unscientific, and I've found no way to test my theory as of yet, but that's the only thing I can come up with at present that adequately explains all the anomalies for me. Maybe you can think of something better.

I do know though that it feels very strange whenever I talk to one of these doubles, so I tend to try and avoid them if I can. It feels almost as if the energy from my head drops down to my feet, and I start to shiver, almost as if I were talking to a ghost. They are flesh and blood, but they are someone I know, and yet don't. It's hard to explain that feeling properly. It's even worse when I talk to Alfons. These doubles feel so familiar that it's eerie. Either they have the same souls and different minds as the people we left back home, or something strange is going on that I haven't thought of yet. Regardless, it is strange.

I won't claim to know all there is to know about parallel worlds. If I did, I would probably be back in my own world, but I suppose that I know more about them than anyone else you'll ever meet, unless you manage to find someone who can successfully travel between dimensions. If you do, put them in contact with me. I would like to know.

That cat carving sounds very nice. I wish I could see it. That was a kind thought you had though, even if we are separated by time, making it impossible. That was clever of you to send those poems to us for Christmas presents instead, since you know that the written word always seems to get through to me. I wish that I had thought to do that. Maybe I can later, when it's not the middle of the night and I can think to put fancy words together. I don't usually write poetry in English though. I think much better in Amestrian, but since you obviously don't speak that, I can certainly try to write in English.

We really liked your poems though. I read them to my brother, and he was actually quite impressed for once. I think he was more impressed that I had an intelligent writer than that the poems were nice, but he liked the poems too. That one that you wrote with him in mind didn't depress him at all, it actually elevated his mood somewhat. I think that it helped to put some of the thoughts he'd been thinking into words, and so he felt a bit of relief. Thank you. Anything one can do to help my brother release his emotions is a wonderful gift. I would get him to respond personally, but obviously, he's sleeping right now, since it's the middle of the night, and I'd rather not disturb him. Maybe the next letter, if he's not busy. We'll see.

Anyway, that's all I can really think of to say right this instant, so I guess that I'll close this for now so that you can finally receive my response and you'll be able to respond yourself. Thank you so much for writing, I really appreciate it.

Take care, and be safe,

Alphonse Elric


	13. Chapter 13

Hello, everyone. I'm back for some more letter answering. I managed to find the time to respond earlier this time because we haven't moved again just yet, though thankfully, we're going to soon. This house is so infested with fleas that they're still here in the middle of winter. I'd hate to be here in the summer, and thankfully, we won't be. Brother's looking a bit sleep-deprived as of late. I guess that all those fleas are bothering him too, even though he won't admit it. I'm so impatient to get out of here that I'm getting jumpy, so I thought that responding to your letters might help to take my mind off of the impending move.

**Hey Al! Thanks so much for the advice. We're trying to avoid those girls, for**

**now anyways. But if they ever bother us again (which I don't doubt) I'll do**

**what you said. Like I said, I usually don't fight back, but it's pretty**

**pathetic when someone's willing to fight someone on crutches. Thanks again!**

**Amaya**

I'm glad that I could help. I hope that the advice works out for you. I know that those techniques work for me so long as I remember to stay calm and centered. When I lose my calmness, I lose my position of strength. Brother has actually had to drag me away from the scene of a fight because I've lost my sense of calm before. I actually get worse than he does when he gets angry in those situations, though thankfully, that rarely ever happens. Keep your calm, and you'll keep your strength. Again, I wish you good luck, and I'll send some good thoughts your way.

**Hey Al. It was nice hearing from you again! Or reading...**

**Thank you for replying! Yes I did mean the years you didn't remember. I will**

**try to be more clear.**

**I have a pretty good question.**

**If you and Ed never went on your journey how do you think it would have**

**affected your relationship? Would it affect it at all?**

**I never really thought about it until now.**

**Thank you for taking some time to reply to these letters!**

**I wish you and Edward the best!**

If I were able to go to a parallel universe where your scenario happened exactly as you stated, I would be able to answer you a lot better than I can now. Since I can't, however, we'll just have to make do with simple speculation.

Some things probably would have been different between us had we never gone on our journey, but it's hard to say exactly how far that would have gone. We definitely loved each other before we ever went on a journey, before our mother died even, but I can't deny that journeying together brought us closer to each other than we would have ever thought possible. We learned a lot about each other during those years that we otherwise wouldn't have, and we learned how to lean on each other for support as well, something we never would have done otherwise. So yes, I'm pretty sure that things would have been different, but I'm not sure to what extent they would have been. Maybe if things had been normal, we would have both grown up, got jobs, got married, and moved away, like normal people. It's hard to say. It's all a matter of speculation, so your guesses are just as valid as mine, since I really don't know.

**Ha ha. Ok I won't sneak into you're house. Sorry but I can only go teach the**

**video guy a lesson if I know where (or when) he is.**

**Hmm, but if he shows up again let me know!**

**May the muses be with you and I'm sure you'll need them considering the**

**amount of mail you must be getting!**

Well, at least we won't have strange people sneaking into our house anymore. Now if we could just track down that video guy, we could send you after him. His technology is a bit strange, so it would probably be better to send you after him than us, since you're much more likely to understand it, being from the future. If he shows up again, I'll make sure to let you know.

I've never had anyone give me a blessing that expresses the desire to have the muses be with me before, but I suppose that that works. I agree that I need them, heh. I think that Brother thinks he's a muse at times, because he sometimes likes to come around and tell me what to write. I've got enough paper here to share, so he should just pull some out and write up something himself, in my opinion, not that I mind hearing his ideas...when they're good.

**(Another video...)**

**Nitro here, at your current house...I just thought, since you called me an**

**idiot, I ought to return the favor.**

**Say hello to a special missile I prepped up just for this...**

**But first, I'll say this: The One-Wing poem in the last chapter...I actually**

**have an ally, and he can...transform into some sort of Seraph...with one black**

**wing...actually, why am I saying this? I have a missile to fire...**

**Missile fires from a portable launcher...it hits the house...**

**BLAA-IDIOT-AM...**

**Ed:WHAT THE F-!?**

**See? My missile called you an idiot...now I'd better scram...you're coming right**

**now!!**

**-Reaches for camera as Ed comes bursting out of destroyed house.-**

**--End of Tape from Nitro—**

I don't actually recall this happening. Perhaps you messed up and went to a parallel universe and blew up that house or something. If so, I feel sorry for that poor Ed and Al, since they likely have no idea why you just did that.

But I'd watch myself better before I started blowing up people's houses to call them idiots. I had to fix your spelling of 'missile' three times. No wait, four. Your English ought to be better than mine, since I assume it's your mother tongue. Hmmm...I just realized that you're bringing out the worst in me. Is that what you intended, to have Al start getting rude? I could get a lot worse than this if that's what you want. Believe it or not, Al can actually get rude.

Illyalil, I think that's the name of the girl who was sneaking into our house...um, here this guy is again, can you do something about him? He keeps coming back and we can't seem to get rid of him.

**Hello Al!**

**Are there any good books you've read recently? I'm looking for books to read,**

**no matter how old they are... It's just a state of boredom I'm in, and I try**

**to entertain myself by reading.**

**I wonder... Is it possible to meet you in this current timeline? I know you**

**may probably be old or dead by then, but still...**

**You know, writing this reminds me of a story I read before... It's about two**

**people from different times who were able to communicate through letters...**

**It's quite interesting, in my opinion.**

**I hope those fleas don't annoy you too much... But judging by what's**

**happening...**

**Peace be with you!**

**- Sally Andrews**

Most of the books I've been reading lately are in German, and I don't know if any of them ever got translated into English by your time, nor do I know if any of them are even worth it. They don't usually seem to be. All they seem to do is occupy my boredom for a brief period of time before the book itself bores me. Don't get me wrong, I love books, but I would much rather read books about alchemy or something like that, and there are hardly any such books here in this world.

There are occasional storybooks I've found around that are interesting enough to keep my attention though. In one of the houses we'd stayed in, I found a copy of a book that was a collection of fairytales by the Brothers Grimm. Since that's folklore, I'd imagine that that got translated into English, or will. I must say though that you people on this side of the Gate have some very strange folktales, but that was what made them so entertaining to read.They aren't friendly and happy by any means, but they were interesting. Maybe you should read some old fairytales, the ones that they don't tell to the young children. They can be suspenseful, disturbing, and occasionally a little bit violent. Like I said, an entertaining read that doesn't bore adults.

As to whether it's possible to meet in your current timeline, I wouldn't know. That would require my knowing how long I was going to live, or possibly what happens after death, and I don't know the answer to either question. Maybe it is possible. Maybe I'm there somewhere in your timeline, since something seems to be connecting me to it, but I don't know what it is. If you ever meet someone who acts so much like me that it's eerie, you may have found the connection, though I'm not sure what connection they would hold.

**Dear Alphonse,**

**Ah, it's great to finally hear from you again. For a while you had a trend**

**of replying on the night before my orchestra concerts, which wasn't very**

**good. It always ended up leaving me tired (but very happy) for my concert the**

**next day. I'm glad to see you finally broke that trend. We did have a**

"**concert" of sorts, but it was very short and was really part of a**

**fundraiser.**

**But I digress…**

**No, we haven't invented time machines yet, though I'm rather glad. If**

**someone ever does manage to invent a time machine, they'd better keep it**

**secret. Just think – if time machines were ever invented and produced**

**commercially, then there would probably be a few people who would try going**

**back in time to make it so that they invent the time machine first, and then**

**someone else would go back, and so on and so forth. The entire space time**

**continuum would be thrown into disarray.**

**I have been wondering about time a bit. What I'm hoping is that it isn't**

**truly a linear existence. I think it might be more of a fluid existence than**

**most humans might believe. Meaning that if there was a different element in a**

**time that already "happened," then the entire course of history could be**

**changed. So you and Ed would have a chance at actually stopping the bomb if**

**that was true. I wonder what would happen if you succeed? Would all my**

**memories suddenly change to fit how history changed? If so, then has history**

**already changed many times and I'm just not aware of it? It's a**

**fascinating thought.**

**Men still don't really wear purple in this time, though now the style is to wear**

**pink. Yes, men wearing pink shirts. I don't really get it, though on some**

**guys it does actually look good. You would probably have fun during the disco**

**age. The men and women both wear all sorts of crazy colors. Now that time in**

**history I'm pretty sure you'll live to see, so I won't give many**

**details. You'll just have to find out for yourself!**

**As for Ed wearing colors… Well, I have heard that some men get into one**

**style of clothing that they find comfortable, and then have a hard time**

**changing it. I also learned that one of the best ways to get them to change is**

**to have someone they trust (preferably a girl, since they supposedly know more**

**about fashion) tell them they look good in something they normally wouldn't**

**wear. So that would mean that Ed needs a girl, maybe a guy, that he trusts to**

**say he looks good in blue… Yeah, that sounds really easy.**

**And by the way, though I know he probably won't take my advice seriously,**

**Ed really would look good in blue. A nice sapphire blue would contrast his**

**hair and eyes nicely and make him, for lack of a better word, pop. Blue and**

**gold are just two of those colors that look really nice together. And that's**

**probably the only fashion advice you'll get for me for quite awhile. I may**

**know what colors go well together, but I don't really get into the whole**

"**I love clothes!" thing.**

**I think that anyone with a good heart would really be glad to make someone**

**else truly happy. I know that I feel good whenever I can even give someone**

**good advice that I know they'll follow. It's another trait of the human**

**race, I suppose.**

**Haha, yeah if they could teach us how to turn copper into real gold in school**

**then all of the world economy would be in trouble. My time actually can turn**

**lead into gold without alchemy, but it costs so much money that it's not**

**actually worth it. It costs more money to make the gold than to keep the lead.**

**Almost a bit of a life lesson, if you think about it.**

**Yes, I would imagine that they would only teach basic alchemic theory in your**

**world, but I would suspect that people who were more into it could go for a**

**higher education that specialized in alchemy. Just like the Chemistry class I**

**had a basic grasp of the subject, but someone who was going into a career in**

**that field would learn much more information at college. Either way, I wish**

**I'd had that slight bit of alchemy knowledge the children in your world got.**

**One of my biggest questions concerning alchemy in your world is the drawing of**

**the actual circles. How do you manage to draw perfect circles for your**

**transmutations without measurements? Is it just from lots and lots of**

**practice, or is it because the people in your world are more easily able to**

**draw perfect circles? Or is it even for another reason entirely?**

**Ah, I really enjoyed reading your thoughts on parallel universes, especially**

**considering that you definitely would know more than most people. Well, except**

**Ed. It would make sense that genetics don't play as big of a role as humans**

**think if such things as parallel worlds exist. Maybe if your theory is right,**

**then the human genes adjust with the souls to give them some sort of**

**reassurance that they are physically related to someone. Because there have**

**been slight differences between the doubles. Like the fact that Alfons' hair**

**is blonder than yours, and that his eyes were a different color. But the basic**

**facial structure is the same.**

**And maybe your theory does sound a bit unscientific, but does a huge stone**

**gate that transports people to other worlds really sound any better? Maybe you**

**feel so strange because these souls are really all part of one big soul that**

**was split apart into who knows how many different bodies. I suppose I**

**couldn't truly understand the feeling you described unless I met a double**

**myself, but I bet that it would be a bit strange.**

**As for someone else who can travel through dimensions, I do know someone,**

**though not personally. He's a fictional character in my world, but then**

**again, so are you and Ed, so I suppose that you would have a chance of meeting**

**him. If you ever see a blue police box in a very strange place, or a man who**

**goes by just "The Doctor" or Doctor, then don't let him out of your**

**sight, no matter what you do. He can travel through both time and dimensions**

**at will, and would therefore be able to take you back home. It would be a long**

**shot that you actually meet him, but there's a slight chance, so I figured**

**I'd warn you.**

**I'm glad you both liked your Christmas presents, though I did feel a bit**

**more unsure on your present than Ed's. Yours was written late at night, much**

**like your letter to me, and I was rather tired, while Ed's had been sitting**

**around and mulling in my head for a while. I actually wrote it with a slight**

**tune in mind, but I couldn't really convey that to you. I like to sing it to**

**myself when I'm thinking heavily.**

**If you want to write a poem in your native tongue, then go ahead. I certainly**

**wouldn't mind. I've actually read a few poems that weren't in any**

**language that even exists in this world, and reading them can actually be very**

**soothing. The only thing I would consider asking is if you could do it in the**

**way I should pronounce them, since I would want to read them aloud, maybe by**

**candlelight. (And I have written by candlelight when the power was out, and**

**even with a fountain pen and thick paper. I felt so romantic then. I've got**

**to read some poetry aloud the next time the power goes out though, that sounds**

**very nice too.)**

**And it's not that uncommon to find an intelligent writer. Hmph. Though of**

**course, I suppose that I could never compare to the vast intellect of his**

**majesty, King Edward.**

**But I'm glad the poems were actually a good gift. I'm glad that One Wing**

**actually managed to help Ed relax a bit, goodness knows he's tense enough**

**already. I suppose that means I gave you a double present Al, both a poem and**

**slightly calmer older brother, haha. He should get a notebook and write poetry**

**himself. He's certainly got a proper mind for it, and it would help release**

**emotions more than someone else writing poetry. And poems don't take much**

**time either, so they're easier to fit into a busy schedule. I know that I**

**love writing poems when I've been thinking hard about my life and have a**

**spare moment.**

**Thanks for responding to me yet again, Alphonse. Your letters are always a**

**happy surprise and I'm always happy to respond to them.**

**Wishing you both the best of luck,**

**Petra**

Hello again! I finally get to do the best letter of the bunch.

So I was responding just before your concerts consistently? Sorry about that. I wasn't even aware that I was doing so. I'm glad to hear that I stopped doing that though. I don't want you getting tired from reading my letters, though I'm glad to hear that you really enjoy hearing from me.

I agree. The common population shouldn't have access to time travel. Like being adept in alchemy, it should be something that one has to strive for. To put power in the hands of just anyone is practically suicide, and can have severe consequences for society. Part of me would like time travel to be discovered, but the other part of me says that it's too dangerous to be worth the risk. Maybe there's another way out that no one has discovered yet. One can always hope, I suppose.

The sages of old have always spoken of the illusion of time, in both of our worlds. It's very possible that it isn't truly linear. If time is a fluid existence as you suggest, and someone were to make a different choice at some point in it, then yes, the memories of the entire future would be instantly changed to accommodate it. It's like if you put a drop of dye in a glass of water. None of that water is immune to the foreign substance, so it all just mixes together and accepts it, nothing is excluded. Of course, just because I can come up with an analogy doesn't make it so, since I could easily rationalize linear time as well, but I don't see linear time as literally as I used to. The Gate does things to one's mind upon going through it that makes one think differently than before.

So purple still isn't a popular color for men in your time, but pink is? That seems a bit odd somehow, but I suppose that all eras have their quirks. If that's what they like, then I'm happy for them. Maybe it's a good thing that I can't travel through time though. If I did and went to your time, I would probably be staring oddly at some people, which would make it quite obvious that I wasn't from that time. Is there anything else that I would find odd in your time? The thought intrigues me.

That sounds like a good idea. Brother probably would look good in blue, but he has a hard time wearing anything but brown lately. Maybe I can find him a suit that's light enough so that it doesn't remind him of a military uniform and suggest that he try it on. He prefers lighter shades of blue, but light colors don't seem to be popular in this country, so I'll just have to do the best I can. It would be nice to see him in a color he actually enjoys for once. Do you have any suggestions on how a man from my time can wear purple without looking odd? That color isn't as easy to work with as blue it seems. It was even challenging in Amestris, but it's much harder here.

Your time has actually figured out how to turn lead into gold? Granted, it costs too much to be an efficient use of time and energy, but it's progress. I'm sure you're aware that transmuting gold was illegal in Amestris, but that's only because it was so easy to do so. It's like printing off fake money, easy to do, but not allowed because it's a threat to the way things are done. When you think about it though, it sounds a little bit stupid. One person can stamp a number on a piece of paper or metal, and it's okay, but if someone else stamps that same number on a piece of paper or metal, they get in trouble. It doesn't really make sense to me.

But yes, we had schools we could go to for advanced alchemy training. Brother and myself would have gone to one had we been willing to grow up first, since these schools were meant for further education after you'd graduated from elementary school. They were strictly for adults. We were impatient, however, and wanted to learn more while we were young, so when our teacher came to Reisenburgh, we had to beg her to take us on as apprentices. That was the only way we could further our alchemy education while still children.

As to the transmutation circles, I don't really know where you got the idea that our drawing skills were so much superior to yours. Maybe it has something to do with the media of your time that portrays our life story. Regardless, the reason that we draw such good circles without trying very hard is because we've practiced a lot. Contrary to popular belief, if everything is in its place, the individual lines don't have to be perfect, which is the reason a simple transmutation circle can be drawn up quickly. A more complex one has to be carefully measured and meticulously drawn in order to make sure that everything is where it belongs. Perfection is impossible with human beings. The real goal is to make the energies flow freely, which they do by way of the symbology incorporated into the transmutation circle. Therefore, the transmutation circle needs to be clear, but it doesn't need to be perfect.

Parallel universes are a very interesting topic for me. I only wish I knew more. Granted, I do know more about them than most people do, having had experienced them firsthand, but I still wish I knew more. Greater understanding of this topic would open up so many opportunities for me in so many different ways. If I truly understood everything about them, I might even be able to find a way home. Or even better, I might be able to find a way home, but be able to come back here any time I want. I've met a few people here that I'd rather not abandon if I can help it, even though I would like to go home. I can't say whether anything is still waiting for me at home though, which is another part of the reason I would like to be able to freely travel through the dimensions. That would give me the freedom to make my home wherever it feels like 'home'.

I've heard that view before about one big soul splitting into multiple bodies. I would have just ignored it a couple years ago, but now that I've seen so many doubles, it does bring one to wonder. These doubles definitely have their differences from the people I knew back in my world, but they have some eerie similarities too, such as specific hand gestures or manners of speech. Their morality may be different or they may make different choices, but they seem to be the same person at their core, and yet someone totally different. It's so hard to explain. I wonder what would happen if I met a double of Mom. That could be awkward, but I would like to see her face all the same, even if she isn't my mother. At least she wouldn't be trying to kill me and Brother.

Thanks for the advice on who to look for. I'm not sure what the chances are that we'll actually meet the guy, but if we do, then at least we'll know what to do. Thanks for the warning.

I understand about late night poetry. Some of my best inspiration comes at night. I guess that I got used to thinking at night during those years I spent in armor when no one else was around to talk to. I had to learn to entertain myself in my mind, and that was one way of doing so. I did write quite a bit of poetry then, though most of it has been lost, sadly. I wrote a lot of stories in my mind as well. I managed to never run out of story material because once I found an interesting idea, after I would play it out, I would think 'What would happen if _this_ happened instead of _that_?' There are so many variations of stories that one can stay occupied on the same one for weeks if you're good enough.

But yes, we both did like both poems, and I agree, you did practically give me two presents. It's quite a treat to get my brother to calm down, so thank you. Feel free to write your magical poetry anytime. The depressing kind seems to work the best on him, for some reason. I guess that I would be the same way if I wasn't constantly trying to appear happy, though that's mostly for his sake. I figure that it's enough for one of us to be depressed. We don't both need to be.

You're right, I should try to get Brother to write some poetry. I honestly don't know why he doesn't. He used to, but he seems to feel self-conscious about it now. Do you have any suggestions on how to get him to stop being self-conscious and just write? Even if he didn't show it to me, that would be okay, as long as he wrote something...though I have to admit that I'd be extremely curious if he didn't want to share, but I would leave him alone if he seriously wanted to keep his work private.

Anyway, you said you didn't mind if I wrote in my own language, so here is an attempt at doing so. I haven't written a poem in quite some time, and it's probably obvious, but I hope you like it regardless. I know you wanted me to spell it phonetically so that you could pronounce it, but I honestly don't see how I can do that very well. The accents between the two languages differ so much that I get confused. I wouldn't think it would be too hard for you though. Amestrian phonetics are almost the same as German, with there being only a few subtle differences. Just pronounce it as though it is German, and you'll do fine. You'll only sound like you have an accent, which you would anyway, but you'll still be understood.

Coshito maista kanti ni

Acht in gliben föfter shi

Ista kimi to nu katai

Nada cüd a ma tai

Lashta kota lüst tano

Lita mita santago

Ista cönen masta yai

Nada cüd a ma tai

Canta me to shunen nicht

Lasta taimen leicht?

Dersen tana lauta kin

Menta ista neicht

Mata ni coshito ka

Lista ki niso

Ista ko me su kanai

Mata, nada cüd a ma tai

This poem has a lot of Amestrian conventions in it which wouldn't make sense to you if I translated it word for word, so in translation, I've taken the liberty of using English conventions that mostly mean the same thing, though a lot is lost in the translation, sadly.

I'm feeling lonely

And I cry out in my sleep

I know my thoughts are heard,

For I have a friend in time.

The desires of my heart become audible

And transcend barriers

I am heard over a great distance,

For I have a friend in time.

When I am troubled,

Will you sing to me in the night?

Your thoughts cheer me,

And I hear your laughter.

I feel your presence near me

Though I am ready to die

You say you don't know how it is possible.

Still, I have a friend in time.

I tend to mess up Amestrian grammar when I write it out in a poem, but people seem to still enjoy my poetry, even if I write the sentences backwards at times. Look through the poem. If it seems to be going in the same order as the English language, it's backwards. I managed to get a few sentences in order this time though. The lines I had translated as When I am troubled/Will you sing to me in the night are actually Will you sing to me in the night/When I am troubled. There are a few other such sentences interspersed in there, which is a good thing, or I would start wondering if I was beginning to forget my native tongue. It wouldn't be from lack of use though, as I speak in my native language to Brother all the time, unless there are people around.

I hope that that made some sense. It's difficult translating Amestrian into English and having it mean what you intend it to. We have different ways of saying things than you do, and I had used a lot of Amestrian idiomatic phrases in that poem which can't be translated directly without losing their meaning. Translation is a sad, sad process which destroys the very fabric of one's creative expression, but it's a necessary evil if we want to communicate. Maybe you should learn Amestrian so that I don't have to translate it anymore. Don't worry, I'm just joking, unless you do want to learn it, that would be fine with me.

Anyway, I guess I should close this letter now. Brother is poking me in the back and saying that he's bored. He has to be pretty bored to do that. Wish me luck in trying to entertain a very bored brother.

All the best,

Alphonse Elric


End file.
